Why We Misread Putin's Russia
Rarely has Russia's leadership been so widely reviled in the West, yet rarely has the West needed Russia's friendship more.
The most obvious reason why the West needs Russia is the latter's abundance of natural resources, which Western governments have for decades assumed would always be at the disposal of their industries. Indeed, Europe has almost learned to take its dependence for granted, relying on its good fortune that, for the past three centuries, the Russian elite has identified itself wholeheartedly with European culture and values. The occasional voices that arose to call for a re-orientation eastward to Siberia, or southward to Central Asia, have never been more than marginal political or cultural influences.
Until today that is. Now that two-thirds of the world's GDP is generated in the Asia-Pacific arena, and European and American elites trumpet their increasing hostility towards Russia's economic and political resurgence, it becomes hard for even such an ardent Europhile as Vladimir Putin to argue that the country's destiny perforce lies with Europe. Translated into simple geopolitical terms, if the West cannot convince Russia that it deserves a "special relationship," then over the next two decades China and India, rather than Europe, will become the primary beneficiaries of Russia's resource abundance, and the axis of global political and economic development will shift accordingly.
The consequences of such shift for the West are hard to imagine. It would lead to the decline, first of Europe, and then inevitably of Europe's closest ally, the United States. Ultimately, Russia's decision (and it is clearly her's to make) to align herself or not with the West will prove decisive in tipping the scales in favor of the long term prospects of modern Western civilization.
Given these stakes, the United States and Europe should strive harder for Russia's friendship. More than a decade-and-a-half after the collapse of the USSR, it is high time to set aside hostilities and to confront the main obstacle to achieving true friendship--an inordinate and often irrational fear of Russia.
Fears have both objective and subjective sources, intertwined in such a way that it is often difficult to tell them apart. As a result, the subjective components of our fear linger well beyond their objective reality; think, for example, of how often as adults people still react viscerally to the things they feared as children.
So it is with Russia today. Compared to the USSR of thirty years ago, Russia's decimated army, that even with recent increases spends no more than 5% of the US military budget, is no military threat to NATO. Moreover, her overarching economic and political ambition since 1991 has not been global conquest, but integration into the global market economy (incidentally, making Moscow the world's fifth largest stock market). And yet, despite having undergone changes that would have been inconceivable a generation ago, many Western pundits seem to fear Russia even more than they feared the USSR, and routinely compare president Putin to Stalin, Mussolini, even Hitler!
Such an intense level of fear must be linked to self-image--to a cultural identity so deeply ingrained that many in the West simply cannot imagine parting with it. That cultural identity, based on separating Russia from the West, served the West quite well during the Cold War by bolstering its psychological defences against an implacable ideological foe. Now, however, it is hampering our ability to see the profound changes that have occurred in Russian society, and we must let it go.
Among the many factors that shape perception of the world around us, the mass media plays a singularly important role. Sociologist tell us that we see people as "informed" when their opinions match the categories established by the media. When one challenges these categories, therefore, one literally runs the risk of being seen as taking positions which are "against all common sense."
In reporting about Russia we see all too often that, as reality diverges from our preconceptions, media reports serve to reinforce our stereotypes. The sad truth is that the more negative a story is about Russia, the more we know it to be true--a toxic axiom that has resulted in a surreal picture of contemporary Russia.
Here are just a few of the choicest examples:
CHECHNYA
Western reporting about Chechnya has focused on the devastation of war and terrorism. This remains the primary focus today, even though more than 7,500 rebels have laid down their arms, terrorist attacks have fallen to almost nil, Russian military casualties have gone from 1400 in 2000 to 28 in 2005, and last August 2006, Russia disbanded the operational headquarters of its military counterterrorism operations in the North Caucasus and transferred security functions to the local Chechen militia.
Since welcoming back most of what were once nearly a million refugees, more than thirty thousand new businesses have spring up. Today there are regions of Grozny where real estate prices are higher than in Moscow! New political and financial institutions are functioning routinely throughout the republic
This is not to suggest that all is now fine in the North Caucasus--unemployment is still widespread; many kidnappings remain unresolved. Still, it is clearly a distortion to pretend that there has not been dramatic progress in this region in the past five years. Russia has won its war against the Chechen rebels and it is safe to say that most people in the West don't even know it.
THE LEGAL SYSTEM
Reporting about the Russian legal system is full of tales of corruption, murder and political pressure, and while these do exist, they have become the exception rather than the norm under Putin.
Reading the Western press one would never know that since Putin became president, citizen's use of courts to redress grievances has risen seven fold, and that 71% of plaintiffs win their cases against the government.
Largely unbeknownst to us, dramatic changes are transforming the Russian legal landscape. In 2006 alone, laws have been passed that virtually eliminate closed judicial proceedings, expand the rights of defendants to call witnesses on their behalf, specify that government officials must respond to citizen's requests within 30 days, create a nationwide juvenile court system, and add significant new privacy protections for individuals. Over the next five years nearly two billion dollars will be injected into the judicial system to enhance its openness and public accessibility. The Russian Association of Lawyers has received government funding to establish a nationwide network of support centers where citizens can turn for free legal advice.
Admittedly, these changes do not guarantee that justice will always triumph in Russian courts, but they are a clear sign that things are moving in the right direction, which is not the impression one gets from the Western media.
THE MEDIA
Discussions of the Russian media typically imply that state control is total, when in fact there is more private media in Russia today than at any time in its history.
In 1997 there were just over 21,000 registered periodicals, virtually no electronic media, and just under one hundred television companies. More than half of all media were owned by the state. A decade later there are more than 58,000 periodicals, 14,000 electronic media, and 5,500 broadcasting companies. The state's share in the newspaper and journal market in 2006 is estimated to be less than 10%, while its share in electronic media, which today reaches 25 million people, is even smaller. Today it is not the Russian state, but foreign companies that own shares in more than half of all Russian broadcasting companies!
Critics, however, have zeroed in on the one area of the media where the state's presence still predominates--national television. Through its control of seats on the board of the joint stock companies that control the media corporations that own particular stations, it is argued, the government exert undue influence on national television channels. What does the evidence actually show?
In January 2007 Medialogia (www.medialogia.ru), Russia's leading private media research firm, released its fourth annual survey. It shows that in 2006 pro-government parties received 54.9% of all the air time devoted to major political parties, up from 45.4% in 2005. The survey also breaks down how often parties were discussed positively and negatively on seven national television channels. Last year the pro-Putin United Russia party was mentioned positively more than twice as often as all other parties combined. This large preponderance, however, is a bit misleading. It reflects the fact that United Russia is mentioned far more often than any other party, but not always favorably. A direct comparison shows that positive reports about United Russia outnumbered negative ones by a modest: 58% to 42% margin.
Medialogia's detailed statistics also demolish the myth that Putin dominates national television and allows no critical reporting. In 2006, for example, Putin garnered over a third of total mentions among the top ten most popular figures on national television, while his ratio of positive to negative reporting was just over 3:1.
Is this too high or too low? Russian television viewers seem to feel it is just about right. In 2005 two-thirds said they had seen no change in television coverage of Putin and that he is covered about the right amount. Moreover, by a nearly 4 to 1 margin they said that opposition parties can freely express their views on national television and in national newspapers. Interestingly, even 56% of Communist Party voters agreed.
These results will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the variety of media options available to most Russians. These include local television and radio stations, half of which are in private hands,the private Ren-TV network that reaches roughly 113 million people in the CIS through its 406 commercial stations, as well as cable and satellites channels that are available to about 20% of the population nationwide.
To sum up, under Putin, for first time in modern Russian history, independent media has become profitable. The typical Russian media conglomerate today is a mixture of foreign investors, Russian banks and local governments. If a local project goes national, as in the case last year of St. Petersburg's Fifth Channel, the shares owned by local governments are often bought out by private investors. Russia already has more private media outlets than any other European country, and as long as advertising revenues continue to rise 15% and more each year (87% annually on the internet), privatization will continue its unstoppable advance.
DEMOCRACY AND CIVIL SOCIETY
Surely one of the most disingenuous claims about Putin is that he has undermined democracy by abolishing gubernatorial elections. Here is how the process actually works. Parties that have won seats in a regional legislature may submit names for governor to a presidential commission, which reviews them and makes its recommendations to the President. The President then forwards his nomination to the local parliament for ratification. Unless there is a serious objection, the candidate proposed by the head of the party that was victorious in the previous elections is typically nominated, a practice that is expected to become legally binding on the President this year.
Critics say that this violates the of separation of powers enshrined in the Russian constitution. The Constitutional Court, however reviewed this argument at the end of 2005 and disagreed because "the final decision on appointment . . . is taken specifically by the legislative body." The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's advisory body on legal matters, and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe subsequently conducted their own reviews and found that the new system conforms with European norms.
But while the media's attention has focused on the appointment of governors, there has been almost no mention of the dramatic expansion of local self-government that Putin introduce simultaneously. Last year tens of thousands of new civic communities began functioning independently of state authorities, leading to an increase in civic initiative and philanthropy. As a spokesman from the Siberian Civic Initiative put it: "Many Russia watchers are operating under the impression that the environment in Russia for NGOs that receive support from international donors has deteriorated during the last year. It has, in fact, improved for those that have expertise in building democracy from the ground up because they are in demand by government departments. Government is saying to NGOs, 'help us, we do not know how to do this' and NGOs are generating income by providing their services."
And, speaking of NGOs, while the view that they are under threat has been widely popularized, no major media outlet has bothered to explain how their number have swelled from 100,000 when Putin took office, to more than 600,000 today. Western financial assistance is certainly not the key, since foreign donations constitute only 8.4% of all donations to civic organizations. Could it be that the severely criticized NGOs legislation of December 2005, has actually proved beneficial?
One could go on and on, but these examples should suffice to provide a sense of the hurdles that even the most thoughtful and well informed media consumers face when trying to understand the changes that have taken place in Russia since Putin took office. I will not even mention Russia's economic miracle--eight straight years of economic growth that have led to a five-fold increase in GDPexcept to highlight one telling point. It astonishes people to learn that return on foreign investment in Russia is an order or magnitude higher than in China, and that foreign companies that invested in Russia have outperformed those that invested in China every year since 2001.
The fact that China is widely regarded as a more attractive investment opportunity than Russia despite yielding much lower profits, having more corruption, far less political freedom, and facing enormous future political uncertainties, testifies amply to the role that media fed cultural preconceptions play in our relations with Russia.
RUSSIA AS PART OF THE WEST
If the main obstacles in our relationship derive from a profound discomfort with the notion that Russia is rapidly becoming just like us, then the fundamental task before us is learning how to envision Russia as part of the West.
It sounds simplistic and naive to say that hostility toward Russia is rooted in a mental image. How hard can it be to change an image? Many scholars have shown, however, that the "invention of tradition," to use Eric Hobsbawm's felicitous phrase, has always set the terms for what is accepted political discourse. People have no problem embracing a completely invented tradition or history, so long as it is reinforced by a consistent media message. That is why, realistically, we cannot expect Western perceptions about Russia to change any time soon.
But that does not mean that such efforts are bootless. Regardless of what some may wish to believe, Russia has already evolved so far from the Soviet Union that our conceptual struggle to preserve a link between the two is destined to fail. The only question is whether we in the West will be able to change our cultural narrative about Russia sooner, at a lesser cost to our relations, or later, at a far greater cost.
We can take some comfort in the fact that this has all happened before. Reflecting back on how dramatically the world had changed since his youth, British historian Sir Herbert Butterfield recalls that:
"In the days of my own childhood, it was still the English against the French, these latter being the traditional enemy. I can remember even now the schoolbook which said that the English owed all their freedom to their kinship with the Germans, for liberty went back to the Teutons in their primeval forests. The Reformation, the emancipation of religion, came from Martin Luther, and Germany in any case had long enjoyed federal government, state rights and even free, independent, self-governing cities, like Hamburg. The antithesis to all this was to be found in the Latin countries. I still remember how it was all spelt out: Italy stood for the Papacy, Spain had had the Inquisition, while France, twice over, if you please, had chosen to live under Napoleonic dictatorships, an evil which, in my young days, had as yet had no parallel in other countries."
Then, as now, success lies in recognizing that our former enemy's cultural heritage is not just similar to our own, it in fact IS our own. Only when we recognize this fundamental truth will we be able to re-write the script of "Western democracy" to include Russia, just as we once re-wrote it to include Germany and Japan.
Nicolai N. Petro is professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island. He has served as special assistant for policy in the U.S. State Department, and as civic affairs advisor to the mayor of the Russian city of Novgorod the Great. His books include: The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard,1995), Russian Foreign Policy (Longman, 1997), and Crafting Democracy (Cornell, 2004).
His web site is: www.npetro.net
Resources were cheap for decades (in the West), and to that end, western society does not pay attention to it's accounting entries for either energy or raw materials (until recently)... As the Soviet Union disintegrated, the US used this peace dividend as a way to design SUV's or cul-de-sac housing that will bring America to her knees as energy prices rise and as natural resource regain their true price signal in market mechanisms.
People in the West say Russia is holding them hostage or black mailing. When in fact, it's the opposite. Still today, experts claim it is extremely dangerous for Russia to rely on EXPORTS either of energy or raw commodities for her economy. And it's true, Russia agrees, it's not the best... But, shouldn't America or Europe worry more that their economies are relying on energy and raw commodity IMPORTS? Russia is doing it's due diligence and is approaching a point where someday, no energy or raw commodities will be exported in avoiding the "Dutch Disease" effects.
Why is it the suppler that is in danger? Yet the consumer is safe?
It's similar to the human trafficking issue. America, Europe and the West at large stand their with such noble, such expert opinions, or such advanced knowledge about how bad human trafficking is. The west will sit there and point at Russia or Eastern Europe about woman that are being exported for slavery or prostitution.
Yet it's the US that is the #destination of human trafficking, as equal as it's is for energy consumption and commodities... and in trade, America hands out IOU's and government bounds... sure that will go on forever, and Iraq is peaceful...
Again, America blames Russia, the supplier... As if all these pedophiles in America have now become the victim.
Sure, according to US protocol, the American pedophiles are the victim and Russia girls are the evil ones.
So it's only natural to assume that America's lack of energy makes here strong, silly, isn't it?
But this is what America markets and advertises.
The truth is that Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and most CIS members have great resources, great intellect and education of their population, great innovation and so much potential. While the west has consumed all and continues to advance like some cancer, where the west claims it's victim status because it needs what the CIS has.
Russia has continued to offer it's hand in partnership. While Europe expects Russian gas to build NATO runways and infrastructure. Europe expects Russian oil and gas to supply electricity to missile defense systems in Eastern Europe at subsidized rates.
Honestly, in my opinion, it's time for Russia to resign from both the CFE treaty as well as the INF treaty. The reason is that new Russian tax laws and future CIS tax laws of the common economic space (CES) will make it more advantageous for raw materials and energy to be consumed within the CIS sphere.
Europe has breached CFE agreements and broken promises made by NATO.
Both Europe and the US will have little resources 10 years from today, market pricing will assure this. Europe and the US will be lucky to have enough capabilities to manufacture one single "fire cracker". Today, the world is quickly transforming into a world where all resources will be in short supply. And to that end, the supplier (of energy or commodities) will be benefit, the supplier will hold the majority of world wealth and the supplier will live well. The consumer (EU / US) with little to trade will basically life like rats.
I remember a Luther Quick posting at the old Russia Journal.
I tend to agree with Nicolai Petro. His article is a broad repeat of his previously stated points.
Good reading material providing a better understanding of Russia.
Here is a related piece from my friend:
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:s5fBMjQjJfcJ:www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/9295-28.cfm+%22Brewing+a+Russian+backlash%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Someone who should have a greater platform on the subject matter.
So true Andrew.
I have never disagreed with Nicolai Petro. There were other Russia Blog articles that have a greater feedback.
That is a fact. An indictment on those controlling the coverage of Russia.
Luther, people have been saying that the sky if falling since the beginning of man. This whole resource shortage is just a bunch of scare mongering by Greens. Yes the Earth's resources will eventually be exhausted but it will not happen overnight. There will be time for the market and technology to adapt and find alternatives, eventually culminating in space travel and immigration to other planets.
I find it interesting that the Green movement seemed to pick up steam when the Communist movement ended with the USSR. In the end, both movements have the same goal, to gain access to the levers of power and dictate how individuals should live their lives, making sure no one has any fun whatsoever.
10 years from today will not look much different than today, unless un-traceable nukes start going off in major cities across the globe. That is the threat that should keep people up at night, not some silly “peak oil†theory.
Jason H,
Actually, I was a registered Republican for 20 plus years, I always voted across the board Republican. As I got older I realized what fakes both the Democrats and the Republicans are. Bush today, as much of the idiot he is, he’s a spitting image of America.
My beef is with US foreign policy … I like to use my BEER analogy. Basically the US and the EU are running out for BEER (oil / gas) and they are now reaching to Russia’s refrigerator for her beer… Using NGO’s, colored revolutions that go nowhere, using missile defense, America is REACHING over and taking beer that’s not hers (Iraq).
This isn’t about democracy in general; this is all about American democracy. And with out dirt cheap resources, there will be no Americans democracy. America couldn’t give a crap about Russian or Ukrainian democracy let alone Georgian or Iraqi, those nations are to assist US hegemony in order to subsidize the US democracy.
US foreign policy is simply childish; it’s about as credible as the war in Iraq.
In regard to your comment of “resource exhaustionâ€, these tree huggers, Greens as you call them, yea, you are correct… they elude that the bottom will fall out tomorrow… but then there are those that know what they are talking about, the REAL experts; they understand what PEAK means in resource depletion. And peak isn’t what the Greens talk about. Peak is the worst moment because it when wars can still be supplied (energy / resources / currency), peak is when there is enough resources to still make prices skyrocket (and people can still get angry), when the monetary system is still working, peak is when there is enough energy to fuel wars and innovations such as “Saddam has wmd†or “Saddam did 9/11†or to have the EU cry that Russia is holding it hostage when it demands fair market prices for its resources.
When we start riding down the curve of “peakâ€, that’s when it’s going to get ugly. My feeling is that we are at that peak. We will run out of nothing tomorrow or in the next decade, there will be plenty for those who over print their currency and sucker the peasants to accept such worthless money.
Forget 10 years from now… you want to understand 7 years from now? Draw a line, on a graph from 7 years ago, and keep drawing DOWN… 7 years from now the US will owe the world more and China and Russia and other BRICs will inter trade more while decoupling from the US sink hole.
Just wanted to add one additional comment that is a bit more on topic. I have always generally viewed the criticisms of Russia (since the end of the USSR) by the West as "tough love". The West wants Russians and all the other peoples of the former Soviet Union to be happy, free, and prosperous. The general consensus in the West is that this can only be achieved over the long run, and I emphasize the long run, by the creation of an open, free society and free market. The West fears that Putin’s reforms will cause Russia to slide back into authoritarian rule.
The old cliché still applies: Free democracies do not attack or threaten other free democracies. Countries ruled by dictators have throughout history generally had poor economies and a substandard quality of life. This creates a need to find a scapegoat, such as a country that provides a high quality of life for its citizens. Envy is a powerful motivator after all, and does wonders for shifting the blame.
I truly believe that the West would like to be friends with Russia. I am not so sure Russia wants to be friends with the West. It seems to me that Russians are worried that if they play nice, others might think they are weak and take advantage of them. Or worse yet, by gaining acceptance from the West, they will lose some of what makes them uniquely Russian, such as their knack for being a pain-in-the-ass.
Finally, the greatest threats to the West are much the same as they are to Russia. These are (1) a decreasing birthrate/aging population, (2) a corresponding increase in unassimilated immigrants, and (3) radical Islam (especially if combined with nukes). This whole lack-of-resources, doom-and-gloom claptrap is just stupid. Russia is not the only country with natural resources. Natural resources are not worth anything unless you use them or sell them. The global market will set the price of resources, whatever they may be, not individual countries.
Luther, as per your response, your perception of reality simply doesn't square with mine. I do truly believe the US is in Iraq to build a free society and offer Muslims an alternative to religious, authoritarian rule. It has been my experience that reading milblogs and forums frequented by US military personnel, that they generally also hold the same views. This evangelism of American style democracy is nothing new. It has been around since the founding of the nation and is what makes America, America.
This whole war for oil argument simply holds no water. Feel free to believe the worst about US motives in foreign policy if it makes you feel better, but realize they are figments of your imagination. Stop reading that useful idiot Chomsky and travel around the US and meet real Americans. You will find out that we really do value “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness†and believe the rest of the world should have the chance to experience these things as well.
Translated into simple geopolitical terms, if the West cannot convince Russia that it deserves a “special relationship,†then over the next two decades China and India, rather than Europe, will become the primary beneficiaries of Russia’s resource abundance, and the axis of global political and economic development will shift accordingly.
Firstly, over the next two decades Europe and the US will rapidly find alternatives to Russian natural resources. Secondly, Europe and the US will be doing monumental amounts of trading goods and services with India and China, which will bring in far more revenue than Russia's flogging of natural resources (if they can manage to get that right even, which judging by what I can see is doubtful).
The consequences of such shift for the West are hard to imagine. It would lead to the decline, first of Europe, and then inevitably of Europe’s closest ally, the United States. Ultimately, Russia’s decision (and it is clearly her's to make) to align herself or not with the West will prove decisive in tipping the scales in favor of the long term prospects of modern Western civilization.
So Russia deciding to sell its oil, gas, and minerals to China and India as opposed to Europe and the US would bring about the collapse of Western Civilization? Hmmm. I think not.
No major country has managed to gain wealth and global influence by flogging natural resources alone, with the possible but dubious exception of Saudi Arabia. In addition, it is not possible to sell natural resources into a global market and exclude specific nations. The Arabs found this out when they tried to prevent Israel from getting any oil: they simply bought it through a third party.
Rarely has Russia’s leadership been so widely reviled in the West, yet rarely has the West needed Russia’s friendship more.
Russia's leadership is not particularly reviled in the West, because aside from the fear that Russia may turn off the gas tap most Europeans consider Russia to be an irrelevancy. Stop any Western European on the street and asks him how highly Russia's president ranks on his list of complaints. As for the USA, there are still some old Cold War dinosaurs beating the war drum (who will probably be out by the next election) and a handful of media pundits whose livelihood depends on making something out of nothing and shouting loudly whilst doing it. To the average Yank, Russia is an irrelevance. They are far more concerned about China, and there is far more of a chance that the world will be dominated by China and the US in the next two decades than Russia and China.
In this period, the US and China could easily come to an understanding that they both need each other to continue with their economic growth, and that a confrontation would be too costly for both sides. Certainly, the US and China will be working very hard to reconcile their differences in the coming years. Russia could well find itself under its own threat from the Chinese, who are hungry for Russia's resources right on their doorstep. In this situation, Russia might wish that it took a different course of action when it cosied up to the Chinese and cold-shouldered the Yanks.
Tim,
Per your comments on the U.S.-Chinese relationship, it sounds like you've been reading your Thomas P.M. Barnett.
As for your comment about the Chinese allegedly being hungry for Russian natural resources and the demographic imbalance in the Far East, we've heard from at least one U.S. Navy officer complimenting us for our posts on these topics.
Fear of a Chinese Planet?
Chinese Migration Into Siberia - Fear vs. Opportunity
Russia's Far East, China's Frontier?
"Siberia is Becoming Chinese"
Thanks for the comments and keep warm in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk!
Charles
Hi Charles,
I'm keeping warm, just about. :)
I've not actually read any specific authors on the US-Chinese relationship, but I am aware that China is getting rich by trading (mainly) goods, the US has gotten rich by trading goods and services, China is the US' second largest trading partner after Canada, and the USA is China's largest trading partner. Furthermore, trade between China and the USA is increasing year on year. This pattern is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, and it is unlikely that Russia is in much of a position to change this.
I read your posts on the resource-hungry Chinese being tempted by the rich but sparsely-populated regions of Russia. Of course, Russians have feared a Chinese annexation of Siberia for well over a century, and they have always amounted to nothing. However, if China becomes a serious power which cohabitates with the US (limiting themselves to arguing over issues like Taiwan and N. Korea), Russia could find itself being relatively weak in comparison and unable to count on the US not diplomatically opposing a Chinese excursion over the border or two.
Jason,
Respectfully, and no insult intended. But you seam naive. Much of what America is doing today in foreign policy, military, NGO activities, the fraud in Iraq, the human abuses, the internal domestic issues from health-care to prison abuses, all of it looks more and more like Enron.
I ask, why is it the the US considers that when it uses force (not sanctioned by the UN) or lies (corruption), why is it that America says it ok when things go wrong because they “meant well� There seams to be this unspoken assumption that America, whatever she does, it’s always for a positive reason. And when things go bad, no body is "ACCOUNTABLE", because, we're America. As if America only worries about the good of the planet, never about the US.
Well, bad corruption or good corruption, it’s all the same. I’m sick of hearing that America’s corruption is GOOD.
Peter Dale Scott said it well. He said the US will collapse if it loses subsidies from the rest of the world. You could say America feeds the world, but it’s not true, because such exports are highly reliant on energy imports. There is no net gain if people let the dollar fall and stop subsidizing US expansion.
To that end, like at Enron, no matter what language you use, no matter how positive you paint the picture, reality looks different. Don’t give me words, show me the results, show me the bottom line, point which US actions have not failed.
For your entertainment:
http://www.therussiansarehere.com/vid/0-US-Failures/prison.wmv
This is a video on prison abuse. Not Gitmo, not in Iraq, but in the US.
Today, the US believes it is above the law, and it requires special treatment. For this America is afraid of the law, as with the “International Criminal Courtâ€.
Honestly, if America was so honest and noble and true and transparent, then let it abide by the ICC, and let America be higher than it expects other to be.
If not, then it’s a fake.
Like George Carlin said: “It’s called the American dream because you need to be asleep to believe in itâ€.
Oh, cosi fan tutti. Our Gitmo, Russia's Litvinenko. Big powers throw their weight around as naturally as an elephant is clumsy. They can't help it.
To me, this alone is ground for an excellent understanding with Russia, and the sooner old grudges fade and tempers cool on both sides, the better.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Human beings are corrupt and deceitful by nature. America is no standard of moral virtue by any stretch of imagination. The same injustices take place here as anywhere else, just under a different guise. Our purported noble motives for meddling into affairs of other countries only fool the likes of Jason H, who’s blindly patriotic of U.S. and A., like an ostrich, stuck his head in the sand refusing to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence of America’s imperialistic tendencies, contempt for other nations and cultures.
And yes, go ahead and glorify the so-called “friendship†that is about to arise betwixt China and America, in the wake of both countries’ keen interest in weakening Russia. This enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend approach has worked real great with this former US-trained ally of ours, Bin Laden, and that other guy that got hanged, Hussein was his name I believe.
Well, regardless of our disagreements, politics will change as different leaders and parties seize control. One thing that speaks better than anything else, and supersedes all political, social, ethnic, linguistic, religious differences is… money. Love of money being the root of ALL evil and such. In the last 5 years US dollar depreciated some 54% against euro dollar, some 40% against British pound, some 38% against Canadian dollar, 62% against Australian dollar, etc. etc. I won’t even go into emerging currencies that are steadily strengthening against good ol’ greenback. Our national debt is huge, and it grows, further killing faith in USD and promoting its devaluation. A bottomless pit that’s gonna require more and more to keep up with the ambitions of a gang of criminals -- doh! I mean politicians -- that sit in a Capitol and don’t seem to care one bit they are driving this country into the ground. Republicans or Democrats alike.
So, instead of playing costly intrigues on global scale, we should focus on domestic issues more. Stop trying to run the world and undermine regional influences of other nations under the pretext of protecting American freedoms, and at the expense of Americans’ well-being. I don’t know how our stance with the Chinese is gonna look like, but I do know this: Chinese (along with Japanese) are the main holders of American debt notes and bonds. They will own this country eventually. And contrary to some economists’ theories that week domestic currency promotes healthier manufacturing sector by making your goods el cheapo compared to same goods paid for in stronger currency, American manufacturing’s been waning due to massive outsourcing.
What is more important to you, the vile emotional satisfaction your Russophobic self is going to receive upon learning that Russia has been royally screwed by Chinese and/or American do-gooders, or the well-being and secure future of you and your family? Somehow I think our govt is more intent on achieving the former, and pissing on the latter.
Well, my fellow Americans, I don’t want to paint an overly glum picture. Lets enjoy our freedoms, liberties (if only perceived), and pursue the hell out of that happiness whilst we can. Meanwhile our illustrious government issues and sells more and more debt with frenzied enthusiasm of a maniac, to finance the whims of a few at the expense of many.
Dear Al Goroh,
I agree with your disgust. However, I would like to add a pile of sarcasm to your message.
First, I would like to see the US continue on it's path. Sure it's bad, but if you or I were in an Enron board meeting, and the President of Enron, Kenneth Lay, says there are profits and the company is sound, then if you or I bring up the truth, we will only be threatened, we will be scolded and ridiculed we will be called a traitor or unpatriotic.
So screw it, agree with the idiots. Agree that the emperor has nice clothes. No sense in going against the grain.
So if America wants rope, sell them all the rope they want. And sell them the highest tree you can find.
Bush, the democrats or the republicans and not even the NEOCONS are the problem. All of the political pacs, parties, and alignments are doing exactly what the US population expects. Sure it's bad economics, but since when is America good at such? This a party man, and the US is going for broke. And this is the reason why America needs to take resources from Iraq and place missile shields in Europe.
Remember, America is the symbol of capitalism, yet most of it's debt is held by socialist countries and the biggest of the debt is held by communist countries like China. So capitalism is literally being subsidized by communism. Funny, but I would have thought it would be the other way around.
Americans will vocalize how terrible it is that jobs are leaving, yet their very actions send those jobs over seas. A union man will run to his neighbors home after learning he has lost his job, they will cry together, cuss the foreigners... after drinking their German beer, watching the football game on a Chinese HD TV set while sitting on Mexican furniture in a warm house built by illegals, heated with foreign oil or gas, they jump into their Japanese pickup truck for a trip down to Wal-Mart to buy more food with foreign made transfats so their arteries will clog where they will finally pay an Indian doctor to give them that heart bypass in a hospital that can't pay the healthcare bills and must issue bonds that will be purchased by foreign banks...
...simply brilliant !!!
Americans complain, verbally, but their actions reflect a greed that was no different than what made the USSR collapse.
To generalize is not fair. But every nation has it's good time and bad times. Like the old USSR saying of the workers "They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work", for here in America it's the same damn thing... Today in America "we pretend to care that jobs are leaving, but we want illegals in the back of our local dinner to cook and wash dishes as we need cheaper prices"... Wal-mart, same thing... our SUV's, same thing...
As far as I'm concerned, tell the idiots what they want to hear. A few years ago I would ask "where are the WMD? did Saddam really do 9/11?" Today, screw it, I now say "I'm glad the wmd are secured", "I'm glad Saddam hanged for 9/11", and "Good to know Enron is profitable and Iraq is now enjoying peace and prosperity", "Great job Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and Dr. Rice, looking forward to more Yankee Know How and more US success".
In the 1960's Apollo 1 had a fire and the tragedy woke America up and America regrouped and changed and won the race to the moon.
But today it's all different, right after the last Space Shuttle tragedy, Bush announced America was qualified for Mars.
Nothing will change until the US goes through exactly what the Soviet people experienced in 1991.
America was once great, but that is history. America had a terrible history when you account black slavery or American Indian genocide, witch hunts, Gitmo, Vietnam, and Iraq, but America also created great values and great success that we can now find all over the world. Real democracy, as apposed to this democracy delusion America is forcing on Iraq, real democracy is spreading all over the world. True democracy is today in Belarus and Russia and Venezuela and Ukraine. Hopefully, in places like Bulgaria where 80% of the people voted against joining Nato, hopefully their leaders will now abide by such mandate, so far the leaders are ignoring their population. And in Poland, where most Polish are against the missile defense shield, hopefully democracy will be applied there as well, yet again, the gov thinks it knows better and is supporting American politics.
Even so, Luther, even so.
You know, I used to get all worked up about politics. Eventually I’ve grown to realize that it achieves nothing, and is only detrimental to my health. Most politicians will lie to you to get your vote, then embark on implementing their own agenda, which runs contrary to the majority’s interests. Russia is quite corrupt, for sure. But we created our own legal form of bribery, called “lobbyingâ€, and nowadays you can buy a congressman for less money than a hooker on the corner of a street. Just take him out to dinner or a game of golf.
So I’ve abandoned my pointless fretting and reduced all my demands to one simple wish.
I only wish that the relative prosperity and freedom we’ve grown so accustomed to will last my lifetime. That’s all. But I fear that our social and cultural (and hence political and economic) disintegration is accelerating too fast. I live one day at a time and don’t expect to be supported or helped by the government. So long as the basic infrastructure remains intact and our basic rights are not infringed upon.
Iraq can rot for all I care. It would be nice to take their oil though.
True loyalty and allegiance in Muslim world does not extend further than family and clan. They are all too happy to kill, torture and blow each other’s mosques. They worship death, and gain respect and recognition by being knee-deep in blood.
Solution for Iraq: take their oil, bring all troops home, stop wasting money on rebuilding it. It’s absolutely grotesque to tell your citizens that Social Security and Medicare are going bankrupt, then turn around and spend hundreds of billions on destroying then rebuilding crap-holes around the world.
Albeit most of it is a ruse to siphon tax money by awarding contracts to companies owned by members of current administration and their buddies. Bush and Cheney, how do you sleep at night!
Al Goroh,
Gee, your last post sound like Iraq's failures are the fault of the Iraqis. And, from there, their oil now belongs to America, because of that failure...
But it just seams to me, in my humble opinion that Iraq was doing better before March 19th of 2003. Just seams to me, that all the failures, the standing on the aircraft carrier making a mission accomplished speech, it just seams to me, that just maybe, its America fault?
I could be wrong, but any oil under an Iraqis feet or oil under an Iranian or Venezuelans feet, it must belong to the locals? Am I wrong?
I don't like, for example what Chavez is doing with price fixing, and I'm a capitalist by heart, frankly, I'm a republican, and I can bullshit like anyone when TRYING TO GET WHAT'S MINE (their oil), but it just seams to me that American BS is starting to be really obvious... Soon I will need boots past my neck with all this bullshit.
Like your post states (eludes), we are eyeing everyone's resource, people elude in their posts why we are really pumping NGO money into Russia or Venezuela... Yet the facts are that US invention is falling flat. Nothing is working.
75% plus of Russian approve of Putin’s mission and RESULTS (I'm still waiting for PNAC results in America, I stopped holding my breath at this point), and Chavez has 80% of his people’s support. Right or wrong, that’s democracy.
So is it really about democracy, well, I believe so... I believe in what America SAYS. But for most Americans, it's not about Russian and Iraqi democracy, this all about AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. Killing Iraqi woman and children expands and feeds America's democracy, Bush was general when he said "democracy", but he was thinking "SHIT, we need more STUFF, and we ain't got energy so we will kill for it"...
You see democracy is linked to economics. And a white hot economy, subsidized by cheap energy and illegal immigrants in America means low inflation and wealth accumulation… Colored revolutions have nothing to do with it… Today, you have the same freedoms in the US as they have in Belarus or Venezuela… just try to take Chinese money in the US and start a revolution…
Anyway, sure America will reach and kill and distort to take from those nations, but it's not going to work - NEVER.
Russian oil for Russians and their allies, screw everyone else.
This is market, not communism, why does America need so much without paying for it?
Mr. Quick, I agree with you.
The following is America's attitude in a nutshell: "You may be right, but we're bigger."
Well, very soon that will no longer be the case. We should think about that time and try to forge lasting alliances instead of inciting hate towards Americans pretty much everywhere around the globe by being inconsiderate jerks bullying everyone and taking what we want by whatever means necessary.
It's OK, Luther, all's we can do is sit back and watch how things unravel.
You know, I'm curious to know which two clowns will be the major runner-ups for the job opening of Commander-in-Chief in 2008. What exciting new adventures await us, to be sure!
Ha,ha... Al Goroh - you are so right with respect that the US is bigger and therefore has the option of making obvious, in-your-face mistakes... and she will make a bigger crater in the ground as she falls.
Well, as for 2008 in the US presidential elections, it will be joke.
America has two parties, that's it... that's 2X better than a one party rule such as communist nations.
America will disintegrate before a 3rd party or any under dog comes to power as president. The same protocol issues by the USSR. And to this day, Russia has far more (functioning) parties in the Duma and equal chances for more than TWO to win the 2008 Russian elections, which by the way, in Russia are by popular vote.
But in Ameerica we use deligates, similar to what Stalin did. AlGore gets more votes, but Bush was the winner, Stalin and Saddam would shake Bush's hand on that election.
And anyway, Borat should run for US president... or maybe the next president can tell Putin what George Bush said "that it would be great if Russia could have the type of democracy that Iraq has today" (as Bush said that I fell on the floor and called him an asshole).
As Bush (by the way, he did get my first vote) acts more and more like the CHIMP that he is, I start to admire people like Zhirinovsky... I shouldn't, but I do. As quality of the US (pandering political) system degrades, as the level of BS goes past the 110th floor of the former World Trade center I start to wonder and worry how disappointed the next American generation will be of these baby boomers... These baby boomers really made a mess of thing.
For your entertainment, some videos of Zhirinovsky, who in my opinion is a far better man than Bush.
Zhirinovsky warning Bush that he will get stuck in Iraq FOREVER:
http://www.therussiansarehere.com/vid/Zhirinovsky/
So much for this Bush Internship, maybe there will be nothing left of America, but the republican party will prevail (note: that was sarcasm).