David Volodzko criticized Lenin in ‘The Seattle Times.’ Now he is without a job. A story of profound intolerance in our country’s most “tolerant” city.
Just found your work from your post about Lenin on Konstantin Kisin’s Substack. Did you sue for wrongful termination? What about the intern? Please tell me you pursed some kind of legal action against that intern who claimed the violence against your family was necessary. That is absolutely unacceptable to say to anyone.
Enjoyed this article and your recent one on the history of Lenin. I think you have an excellent point that needs to brought to the attention of the West who tends to forget about the horrors of communism. Don’t apologize for it.
I am curious though, (serious question) why you are a democratic socialist, if you have seen and understood the failures and horrors of communism. This
I'm a conservative evangelical Christian in the rural Midwest. My politics are different from yours David. But I appreciate the fact that you spoke the truth about Lenin. Neither a fascist nor a communist be. I am sorry about what you and your family are going through.
Could the rest of you please cut this man some slack? He's already being ripped apart by his fellow leftists.
"Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy."
I'm sorry, but I found this article very unsympathetic. While I don't wish the stress of not being able to afford rent on anybody, and absolutely fault the editorial board for being cowards and idiots, this man should never have apologized for his (true) tweet. You don't apologize to the mob. Ever. And the fact that he is still a hardcore leftist after traveling the world and studying Lenin is disturbing, to say the least.
David - I am so sorry for what happened to you. I live not far away - on the Eastside- and I remember when the Times was advertising for that editorial board position and I wondered who they would get. There is no excuse for an employer to lure someone across the country and then dump him. You didn't even get a three-strikes-and-you're-out benefit - they caved immediately. This happened to me once - I moved halfway across the country to take a job, I sold my old home at a loss and bought a new place, believing I'd be there for years and I was dumped less than a year later. It takes years to recover financially from that kind of betrayal. I hope you can stay here in Seattle but I wouldn't blame you for wiping the dust off your feet and getting the hell out of Dodge.
Mr Volodzko is a walking contradiction. A breathing, thinking, chatty contradiction. He and his Leninist DEI trainer wife are part of the problem. They support and advance a murderous ideology right here in America and align themselves with and fit nicely into the new Communist cultural paradigm. Hitler and Lenin are not comparable for one reason only: Leninism won. Listen to yourself: you are hoping for the day when Lenin statues will fall... in Seattle!! While Jefferson Davis hits the ground in Richmond.
I appreciate the story from this author. However, I find it difficult to sympathize. Leftists in the US and the West in general are ALL ABOUT suppression of non-aligned voices, excuse me "dangerous misinformation which is causing harm and must be removed for 'safety'". If I said, "well, I'm a US nationalist and I'm also white" the author would probably want to put me in the gulag.
So, I am sorry this is happening to your family. It wouldn't have happened in rural Georgia, I assure you.
So now he realizes a little too late that he was naive. I could have predicted everything that happened to him in Seattle. The left eats its own. It's astounding to me that someone who apparently admired Alexander Solzhenitsyn could define himself as a Democratic Socialist.
Where there is complete unanimity, as exists among all of you, one should be suspicious. No one is completely right, you or the leftists, whoever they are. The tragedy to me is that neither side looks at itself. Both sides either fall back on the cute but demeaning names they have thought up for the other side or take comfort in the group with like opinions who only hang and interract with each other. In short, both sides are more interested in being right than moving some energy. And in the end, there will be no winner . . . there will only be righties and lefties dying miserable deaths together. But I bet that, in the end as America dies and you all descend into hell, you will all still be blaming each other.
I'd say you got what you've been voting for all this time. It may not be what you wanted but it's what you voted for. If you're going to be part of the mob, you can never leave it, or you'll be trampled.
This piece got me to subscribe to The Free Press after I've been reading it since its inception.
I'm Venezuelan, my family left the country in 2008 when my father, an oil company employee, was not able to secure a well paying job after he was blackballed by the government when he went on strike to oust Chavez, along with the rest of the oil industry, in 2002. I remained home because I was an idealist student that thought the regime could be ousted, I later left feeling defeated in 2013 to Mexico where my parents and brother had settled after striking out in Panama.
My brother is an American citizen, he was lucky enough to be born there when my father was doing his masters at the University of Indiana, I was 1 and half when we moved there, leading me to at a very young age fall in love with USA.
When I became politically minded, I started to pay attention (and continue to do so) to American politics, obviously I'm heavily opposed to socialism so it's been increasingly depressing online to run into american leftist after american leftist, whom when I engage with them call me gusano, fascist, accuse my family of probably owning plantations and slaves back and just all around insult and demean me, even when they're always espousing openness, diversity and acceptance, particularly of brown people like myself, yet it seems my skin color can't shield me from the ideological vitriol.
It continues to depress me immensely that the hammer and sickle are not viewed in the same light as the swastika even though communism has historically massacred 5 times the amount of people and is continued to be a widely accepted ideological stance simply because it sounds good on paper and academics love to ponder on the utopia it might bring when time and time again it only creates human misery.
Even though I sympathize with you and your family history David, I fail to see how you didn't learn the lessons from history to end up a democratic socialist (which is simply socialist with the word democratic prepended) and have a wife that also seems to have the same kind of leftist ideology. I would imagine the hatred on that political side in the US was shown to you quite often, specially in Seattle during the CHAZ. Yet, I hope this event makes you rethink your political worldview and I'd like to say that absolutely no one deserves the kind of treatment you have, much less someone with your family history.
There are many lessons to be learned from this one but the most important one is “stop Tweeting”. Imagine how many jobs might have been saved over the past fifteen years if people could have just kept their unfiltered thoughts to themselves.
Now that the thin veneer of leftist "tolerance" has been pulled back from your eyes, you might take some time to reconsider all those "values" that drew you to Seattle to begin with.
It's unfortunate that so many here are willing to attack Mr. Volodozko who is writing an honest piece about what happened to him-- and revealing the intolerance of our society. Looking at these comments, I see the same intolerance. Armchair pundits making judgments over the mistakes of another. (The left and the Right are really no different in how much they love excoriating others).
You make a good point, and yet, this is a story that has been repeated over and over. You have a person whose leftist credentials are impeccable who expresses an opinion that is outside that tiny range of thought that is acceptable to the mob. That person is then astonished to find that the mob is utterly ruthless in retaliating against him, and will settle for nothing less than his complete destruction. It doesn't matter what he's said or done before. He has failed to meet the standard of absolute fealty that the mob demands.
Can he honestly say he hasn't seen this before? Can he honestly say he never did it to anyone else? What about his wife, the DEI (or as I think of it "DIE") worker? Has she never tried to get someone fired for an offhand comment that enraged the most thin-skinned, hypersensitive, crybaby in the group?
I think he knew all along this kind of thing happens to other people, and he was somewhere between indifferent and a participant, but he was just sure it would never happen to him.
Many of us learn from experience. You may have had an experience that turned you away from religion or towards religion; made you more conservative or less so; stopped trusting a situation or a person-- all because of an event that happened to you personally. To attack those who have come to a new realization that aligns with your own seems counter productive. I was a liberal for many years until I was met with a situation that seemed to go against the moral and constitutional fiber of our country. It was a wake up call for me. I don't want to be attacked for having once been a liberal. Anyhow--- that's my humble two cents.
Our country has gone way off the rails and I worry that the only writers who will remain will be those who say bland, innocuous statements that the public could never misconstrue.
Like many here, I read this with a gut reaction of, "duh." You moved to Seattle and this happened to you? What did you expect? But I do feel for his family. His kids must be confused from moving around so much for his job which he can't seem to hold onto anywhere - whether by choice or not. I would like to know what was wrong with his job in Georgia that he uprooted his ENTIRE family after a year - again. I sense a tone in his incredulity of being "better than" because of his left-leaning beliefs. I mean, "and residents who routinely approved tax hikes to ensure those in need of help received it." This sounds like virtue-signaling and extreme naivete. Since when did raising taxes ensure those in need of help received it? What is this guy, 12? Also, it begs the question, what in the world, really, is a Democratic Socialist? A Socialist who doesn't want to be called a Socialist? Seriously asking.
David,
Just found your work from your post about Lenin on Konstantin Kisin’s Substack. Did you sue for wrongful termination? What about the intern? Please tell me you pursed some kind of legal action against that intern who claimed the violence against your family was necessary. That is absolutely unacceptable to say to anyone.
Enjoyed this article and your recent one on the history of Lenin. I think you have an excellent point that needs to brought to the attention of the West who tends to forget about the horrors of communism. Don’t apologize for it.
I am curious though, (serious question) why you are a democratic socialist, if you have seen and understood the failures and horrors of communism. This
I'm a conservative evangelical Christian in the rural Midwest. My politics are different from yours David. But I appreciate the fact that you spoke the truth about Lenin. Neither a fascist nor a communist be. I am sorry about what you and your family are going through.
Could the rest of you please cut this man some slack? He's already being ripped apart by his fellow leftists.
"Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy."
I'm sorry, but I found this article very unsympathetic. While I don't wish the stress of not being able to afford rent on anybody, and absolutely fault the editorial board for being cowards and idiots, this man should never have apologized for his (true) tweet. You don't apologize to the mob. Ever. And the fact that he is still a hardcore leftist after traveling the world and studying Lenin is disturbing, to say the least.
David - I am so sorry for what happened to you. I live not far away - on the Eastside- and I remember when the Times was advertising for that editorial board position and I wondered who they would get. There is no excuse for an employer to lure someone across the country and then dump him. You didn't even get a three-strikes-and-you're-out benefit - they caved immediately. This happened to me once - I moved halfway across the country to take a job, I sold my old home at a loss and bought a new place, believing I'd be there for years and I was dumped less than a year later. It takes years to recover financially from that kind of betrayal. I hope you can stay here in Seattle but I wouldn't blame you for wiping the dust off your feet and getting the hell out of Dodge.
Mr Volodzko is a walking contradiction. A breathing, thinking, chatty contradiction. He and his Leninist DEI trainer wife are part of the problem. They support and advance a murderous ideology right here in America and align themselves with and fit nicely into the new Communist cultural paradigm. Hitler and Lenin are not comparable for one reason only: Leninism won. Listen to yourself: you are hoping for the day when Lenin statues will fall... in Seattle!! While Jefferson Davis hits the ground in Richmond.
I appreciate the story from this author. However, I find it difficult to sympathize. Leftists in the US and the West in general are ALL ABOUT suppression of non-aligned voices, excuse me "dangerous misinformation which is causing harm and must be removed for 'safety'". If I said, "well, I'm a US nationalist and I'm also white" the author would probably want to put me in the gulag.
So, I am sorry this is happening to your family. It wouldn't have happened in rural Georgia, I assure you.
So now he realizes a little too late that he was naive. I could have predicted everything that happened to him in Seattle. The left eats its own. It's astounding to me that someone who apparently admired Alexander Solzhenitsyn could define himself as a Democratic Socialist.
Where there is complete unanimity, as exists among all of you, one should be suspicious. No one is completely right, you or the leftists, whoever they are. The tragedy to me is that neither side looks at itself. Both sides either fall back on the cute but demeaning names they have thought up for the other side or take comfort in the group with like opinions who only hang and interract with each other. In short, both sides are more interested in being right than moving some energy. And in the end, there will be no winner . . . there will only be righties and lefties dying miserable deaths together. But I bet that, in the end as America dies and you all descend into hell, you will all still be blaming each other.
I'd say you got what you've been voting for all this time. It may not be what you wanted but it's what you voted for. If you're going to be part of the mob, you can never leave it, or you'll be trampled.
I think the cautionary tale here is that Twitter is no forum for nuanced debate. For the life of me, I don't understand why anyone uses it.
This piece got me to subscribe to The Free Press after I've been reading it since its inception.
I'm Venezuelan, my family left the country in 2008 when my father, an oil company employee, was not able to secure a well paying job after he was blackballed by the government when he went on strike to oust Chavez, along with the rest of the oil industry, in 2002. I remained home because I was an idealist student that thought the regime could be ousted, I later left feeling defeated in 2013 to Mexico where my parents and brother had settled after striking out in Panama.
My brother is an American citizen, he was lucky enough to be born there when my father was doing his masters at the University of Indiana, I was 1 and half when we moved there, leading me to at a very young age fall in love with USA.
When I became politically minded, I started to pay attention (and continue to do so) to American politics, obviously I'm heavily opposed to socialism so it's been increasingly depressing online to run into american leftist after american leftist, whom when I engage with them call me gusano, fascist, accuse my family of probably owning plantations and slaves back and just all around insult and demean me, even when they're always espousing openness, diversity and acceptance, particularly of brown people like myself, yet it seems my skin color can't shield me from the ideological vitriol.
It continues to depress me immensely that the hammer and sickle are not viewed in the same light as the swastika even though communism has historically massacred 5 times the amount of people and is continued to be a widely accepted ideological stance simply because it sounds good on paper and academics love to ponder on the utopia it might bring when time and time again it only creates human misery.
Even though I sympathize with you and your family history David, I fail to see how you didn't learn the lessons from history to end up a democratic socialist (which is simply socialist with the word democratic prepended) and have a wife that also seems to have the same kind of leftist ideology. I would imagine the hatred on that political side in the US was shown to you quite often, specially in Seattle during the CHAZ. Yet, I hope this event makes you rethink your political worldview and I'd like to say that absolutely no one deserves the kind of treatment you have, much less someone with your family history.
Very well said. Thank you.
There are many lessons to be learned from this one but the most important one is “stop Tweeting”. Imagine how many jobs might have been saved over the past fifteen years if people could have just kept their unfiltered thoughts to themselves.
Now that the thin veneer of leftist "tolerance" has been pulled back from your eyes, you might take some time to reconsider all those "values" that drew you to Seattle to begin with.
It's unfortunate that so many here are willing to attack Mr. Volodozko who is writing an honest piece about what happened to him-- and revealing the intolerance of our society. Looking at these comments, I see the same intolerance. Armchair pundits making judgments over the mistakes of another. (The left and the Right are really no different in how much they love excoriating others).
You make a good point, and yet, this is a story that has been repeated over and over. You have a person whose leftist credentials are impeccable who expresses an opinion that is outside that tiny range of thought that is acceptable to the mob. That person is then astonished to find that the mob is utterly ruthless in retaliating against him, and will settle for nothing less than his complete destruction. It doesn't matter what he's said or done before. He has failed to meet the standard of absolute fealty that the mob demands.
Can he honestly say he hasn't seen this before? Can he honestly say he never did it to anyone else? What about his wife, the DEI (or as I think of it "DIE") worker? Has she never tried to get someone fired for an offhand comment that enraged the most thin-skinned, hypersensitive, crybaby in the group?
I think he knew all along this kind of thing happens to other people, and he was somewhere between indifferent and a participant, but he was just sure it would never happen to him.
Many of us learn from experience. You may have had an experience that turned you away from religion or towards religion; made you more conservative or less so; stopped trusting a situation or a person-- all because of an event that happened to you personally. To attack those who have come to a new realization that aligns with your own seems counter productive. I was a liberal for many years until I was met with a situation that seemed to go against the moral and constitutional fiber of our country. It was a wake up call for me. I don't want to be attacked for having once been a liberal. Anyhow--- that's my humble two cents.
Our country has gone way off the rails and I worry that the only writers who will remain will be those who say bland, innocuous statements that the public could never misconstrue.
Like many here, I read this with a gut reaction of, "duh." You moved to Seattle and this happened to you? What did you expect? But I do feel for his family. His kids must be confused from moving around so much for his job which he can't seem to hold onto anywhere - whether by choice or not. I would like to know what was wrong with his job in Georgia that he uprooted his ENTIRE family after a year - again. I sense a tone in his incredulity of being "better than" because of his left-leaning beliefs. I mean, "and residents who routinely approved tax hikes to ensure those in need of help received it." This sounds like virtue-signaling and extreme naivete. Since when did raising taxes ensure those in need of help received it? What is this guy, 12? Also, it begs the question, what in the world, really, is a Democratic Socialist? A Socialist who doesn't want to be called a Socialist? Seriously asking.