EDITORIAL
Annals of Russian Hypocrisy
We continue to be genuinely amazed at the ability of Russian people in general, and Russian rulers in particular, to reach new heights of breathtaking hypocrisy.
Take, for instance, the remarks of Russian “president” Dima Medvedev last week. He said that the 15% drop in the American stock market and the federal bailout plan indicates that “the times when one economy and one country dominated are gone for good” and blamed the problems on American “egoism.” The “prime minister” Vladimir Putin said: “This is not the irresponsibility of some people but the irresponsibility of the system, which as it is known, claimed to be the leader.”
The two Russian rulers seem to have forgotten that their own stock market has fallen four times further than America’s has. So either they are, in fact, still totally “dominated” by America or else America did not cause the drop, but rather their own incompetence. Either way, that’s more hypocrisy than a normal human brain is programmed to process. It appears that either Russia’s two rulers didn’t think at all before they uttered their insane drivel, or like their Soviet forebears they have so much seething contempt for the intelligence of the outside world that they believed nobody would notice.
And there’s more. Don’t Russians routinely point out that Americans were were wrong when they said that Russian power was “gone for good”? Aren’t Russians strutting and preening now, claiming that Russia is “back” and “flexing its muscles”? If they’re right, wouldn’t it perhaps be a good idea to consider the possiblity that America might make a comeback just like they believe Russia has done, and bear the same kind of grudge Russia bears the U.S. now? How can Russians complain about being abused by America in the past if they turn right around and abuse America in exactly the same way?
Given the fact that America has existed as a nation under one form of goverment for more than 200 consecutive years, while the Russian state has collapsed twice in the past 100 years alone (three times if you count Kerensky, four if you count Yeltsin), it would seem that even if America is in decline it has at least as much chance as Russia does of staging a comeback. But Russia’s insular leaders, oblivious of history and removed from any form of serious domestic criticism, don’t seem to see that possiblity — just as, indeed, they didn’t see the chance that attacking the U.S. could destabilize its economy and wipe out Russia’s economy in the backwash.
This is what passes for leadership in neo-Soviet Russia. A nation governed this way cannot long endure.
La Russophobe 