EDITORIAL
A Decade with Putin is a Lost Decade
Writing for the German Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper, commentator Victor Radio concludes:
The inability to understand criticism as an opportunity to improve his nation has led Vladimir Putin to purse the glorification of the existing “Mother Russia” and a new blind spirit of patriotism. Instead of reform, Putin permitted the nation to rediscover its self-esteem in response to perceived “insults” from the prior decade. Finally holding power, Putin wanted nothing more than to lash out at the nation’s critics. As a result, Russia has been driven to a state of impasse. The Putin decade is a lost decade, with only a facade of democracy being created and no real progress. It is not entirely Putin’s fault, but he bears the entire responsibility.
That description applies not only to the Russian dictator, but to the vast majority of the hapless Russians he rules. Let’s be clear: It is not just that Putin publicly denies that Russia’s critics have any merit, it’s that he flouts their statements as a matter of policy, and allows his nation to continue to degenerate into filth and squalor.
Radio shows how Putin, setting a childish and self-destructive example for his country, always responds to criticism by pointing to the faults of his critics. This is exactly the same tactic the USSR always practiced so it is hardly surprising that Putin, a proud KGB spy, would do the same. And it is the reason that the USSR collapsed into rubble. The USSR could not accept criticism, so it could not reform, could not grow and develop, could do nothing but tread water. Oblivious to the fatal illness that was consuming it, the USSR became weaker and weaker until it simply fell apart.
Now, Putin is doing it all over again, like a stubborn angry child repeating the same self-destructive behavior just to annoy his parents. As Radio puts it: “Putin is secret service, not a statesman. For him, diverse opinions do not represent a path to greater understanding, but only a path to danger.” Radio points out that Putin’s Russia is nothing but a gigantic Potemkin village, with a veneer of development masking a vast crumbling foundation left wholly unrepaired. Putin’s only response to economic and social issues is brute force, born of ignorance and nourished by paranoia.
A nation ruled in this way cannot long endure.
Putin believes that for Russians to honestly confront the horror of their past would mean destroying their fragile, child-like psyches and condemning the nation to ruin. Apparently, Putin thinks his countrymen are far more weak and feeble than Germans, who forthrightly admit and acknowledge the evil of their Hitlerian past and who have successful worked to build a prosperous democratic country. Little wonder, then that Putin is such an angry, paranoid little dwarf. He must fear that his countrymen can be bested by the people of almost any other country in fair competition, and cannot govern themselves any more than chickens can. So Putin feels he can govern only through lies and brute force.
And who knows? Maybe he’s right. The people of Russia, certainly, have done little to prove otherwise in the Putin years.
La Russophobe 
Thanks LR for this accurate and pragmatic blog!
The description, especially so those three magic words “paranoid little dwarf” explains the reason for his inferiority complex and hatred of everything that is not his soviet era ‘mother’ Russia, controlled by his beloved KGB (ok, ok FSB for you pedantic ruSSophiles).
While like sheep, baa, baa, the majority of Russians follow ignorantly! What a life?
Дырку ты от бублика получишь, а не Шарапова. And the “magic” words “paranoid little dwarf” are paranoic themselves, as there are no big dwarfs. Run to your mother LR and complain.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
You must have studied in a Russian “school” to get your “education.” Some dwarves are bigger than others! Putin is the smallest of them all.
I like the term “Pip-squeek”
To continue the LR’s brilliant “small dwarf”:
“fat butter” (classics:D some sorts of butter are less fat), “alcohololic wine” (some wines contain less alcohol), “flat plain” (some plains are less flat), lying duffer (some duffers lie less).
Well, some special people obviously do:D
Medvedev calls USSR “totalitarian”
“The Soviet Union was a very complicated state and if we speak honestly the regime cannot be called anything other than totalitarian,” he said. “Unfortunately this was a regime where elementary rights and freedoms were suppressed.”
The Telegraph reports that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has launched an outspoken attack on the USSR, calling it “totalitarian” and criticizing its human rights record. The text of the Izvestia interview can be read in Russian here. Money quote:
http://izvestia.ru/pobeda/article3141617/
Если говорить прямо, тот режим, который сложился в СССР, иначе как тоталитарным назвать нельзя. К сожалению, это был режим, при котором подавлялись элементарные права и свободы. И не только применительно к своим людям (часть из которых после войны, будучи победителями, переехала в лагеря). Так было и в других странах соцлагеря тоже. И, конечно, из истории это не вычеркнуть.
Bingo! He really did! Clearly you’ve won!
Yes, he is referring to the USSR, a nation that has not existed for almost two decades.
As far as totalitarianism is concerned, one must pay heed to the cogent observation that Noam Chomsky has made:
“Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the US media.”
And so on down the line; there are many totalitarian elements in modern Russia and in the modern US as well — just take a look at most US corporations. They are fundamentally totalitarian, seeping into the society itself because the US is business-run to an unusual degree.
I seriously doubt your words may inspire Bohdan to give reason a try:D
Don’t speak for me Dimwit Dimitry! it is not necessary for you to confirm your stupidity! I am well aware of it.
Besides I do not class dima in your category.
Divide and conquer, Bohdan! Bite! Get’em!
Hah. Obviously Chomsky never bothered to poke his head out of his hidey-hole while he was alive to see the most unobedient behavior of the US media during the Bush presidency. Of course, this is the same idiot who thinks that the destruction of one medicine factory in the Sudan (which we still do not know for sure was an actual medicine factory) caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and singlehandedly pushed the Sudan to embrace Al-Qaeda.
The same Al-Qaeda that had been in the Sudan for a decade beforehand. With the permission of the government.
And it also mysteriously forgot to mention that the very same drug (whose name I forget) the factory was supposed to be manufacturing which has supposedly caused all these countless deaths… is still regularly distributed to the Janjaweed sent to chase the persecuted minorities in the South and in Darfur, which opens the question of exactly what Khartoum’s priorities are even if the US DID blow up a medicine factory.
Yeah.
dude, wikipedia says Chomsky still is alive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky
Just one question:
Is policy of US media controlled by their audience?
It depends on how you define “controlled by their audience.” The only real policy the U.S. media has is to sell as much advertising as they can and make money in other ways too.
And that’s how it should be. Media is business, and their sole purpose is to make money. They would print and show whatever attracts the greatest audience.
So?
My definition of control over media policy is something like:
Audience wishes to, has power to, and practices exerting influence on the policy of the media.
“The only real policy the U.S. media has is to sell as much advertising as they can and make money in other ways too. ”
Pray tell me, is Murdoch any more influental than any other man with a coffer of a same size?
“And that’s how it should be. Media is business, and their sole purpose is to make money. They would print and show whatever attracts the greatest audience”.
If the answer to the above question is “No” – I’d fully and gladly agree with this.
Who are we comparing Murdoch to? And I don’t know how exactly to compare who is more influential. But let’s say, it’s Murdoch vs. Steve Jobs. My gut feeling is Murdoch loses (although again I am not sure how to measure the degree of influence).
Media business is of course highly visible, that’s true. But at the end of the day, the customer is always right and always prevails; and so the audience being the customer does influence every media outlet very much.
“Who are we comparing Murdoch to?”
Well… His coffers hold USD 6,3 BN. Let’s find some equals of him…
Yes. Here.
1) James Goodnight
2) John Paulson
3) John Kluge
4) Steven Cohen
5) Philip Anschutz
All right above him in Forbes’ 400 Richest Americans list.
Compare Murdoch to these people by influence, please.
And by “influence” I mean they are able, wish and practice exerting influence on the policy, internal and external, of the USA.
If Murdoch is less influental, I will gladly agree to your statement that “at the end of the day, the customer is always right and always prevails” and my hypothesis that, in the US, “audience wishes to, has power to, and practices exerting influence on the policy of the media.”
Surprisingly, no answer.
I question his sincerity. He says the right words, but does he mean it? If they believe the U.S.S.R. was really evil, shouldn’t they be happy it fell apart? But no, his boss Putin calls the demise of the U.S.S.R. a great catastrophe. Why would it be a catastrophe to see a totalitarian state fall?
I don’t even know how to explain it to you.
Well, I thought it was a simple question. Would one call the fall of the Pol Pot regime or Idi Amin a great catastrophe? Catastrophe for whom?
If Medvedev calls the U.S.S.R. a totalitarian state, which it most certainly was, why lament the disappearance of evil?
Again, the reason why a person may call Stalin regime a dictatorship, and still believe the USSR breakdown fas a tragedy is so simple –
“USSR” does not equals to “Dzhugashvili”.
Well, the oppression carried on long after Stalin, and it did not start with him either.
Arguably Lenin was just as big a monster.
Dude, we’re here discussing your POV on the USSR, or the quote from the interview of the Russian President?
Dima from Sovk-union need a different perspective ?
Keith Windschuttle writes in the New Criterion that
“Chomsky was well aware of the degree of violence that communist regimes had routinely directed at the people of their own countries. At the 1967 New York forum he acknowledged both ‘the mass slaughter of landlords in China’ and ‘the slaughter of landlords in North Vietnam’ that had taken place once the communists came to power. His main objective, however, was to provide a rationalization for this violence, especially that of the National Liberation Front then trying to take control of South Vietnam. Chomsky revealed he was no pacifist. I don’t accept the view that we can just condemn the NLF terror, period, because it was so horrible. I think we really have to ask questions of comparative costs, ugly as that may sound. And if we are going to take a moral position on this—and I think we should—we have to ask both what the consequences were of using terror and not using terror. If it were true that the consequences of not using terror would be that the peasantry in Vietnam would continue to live in the state of the peasantry of the Philippines, then I think the use of terror would be justified. But, as I said before, I don’t think it was the use of terror that led to the successes that were achieved.”
In his 1987 memoir Out of Step, political philosopher Sidney Hook criticized Chomsky’s stand at some length:
Although there was much to criticize in American domestic and foreign policy, what struck me was the one-sidedness, unfairness, and systematic use of the double standard in the attacks against the United States and South Vietnam. … He called upon the United States “to denazify itself,” but not North Vietnam or China. What practices in the United States, compared to the barbarous practices of Cuba or of China or of North Vietnam, warrant such a characterization? In those countries how long would one survive who whispered the kind of criticisms Chomsky was perfectly free to broadcast in the United States and be rewarded for it? […] The United States was taxed with following a policy whose logic was “genocide” for helping South Vietnam deal with “a peasant-based insurrection led by Communists” while the genuinely genocidal practices of North Vietnam in liquidating whole categories of the population were not mentioned. On his visit to Hanoi, Chomsky publicly held North Vietnam up to the world as a model of social justice and freedom. Whenever Chomsky and those who repeated some of his absurd views were challenged, they often cited as their authority someone else who had uttered similar absurdities, as if this vindicated the point they were making. […] The grim consequences of … Hanoi’s victory are now incontestable. The record of the last decade has brought a realization to some, who had been of the same view as Chomsky, of what they helped to bring into being in Vietnam. Protests have been organized against the continued existence of concentration and re-education camps, and the systematic barbarities practiced against dissenters. But Chomsky is still unrepentant. He has refused to join any protest, on the ground that it would serve the interests of the United States. In short, he has followed the double standard to the last, for he never hesitated to utter the most extravagent criticism of the United States on the ground that it would serve the interests of the Soviet Union.
Dima admire the uniformity and obedience of the Putin-mafa Polonium controlled media in Sovok-union ?
The Ministry of Truth Russia Today Izvestia Pravda and ITAR-TASS
Yo, you speak like a gansta, man.
” It’s very easy to condemn the crimes of others. Stalinist hacks condemned the crimes of the West. I don’t applaud them for that. I applaud the Soviet dissidents who condemned the crimes of the Soviet Union.”
Noam Chomsky
Borya, do you believe people read two-pages posts from random users?
“Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.”
“I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.”
“If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.”
Noam Chomsky
“I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system”
The way he can express a very natural idea shows the man is genius.
Thanks for your comments Boris! a new and knowledgeable fresh breath of fact, wisdom and more importantly TRUTH graces LR’s pages.
Keep up the excellent work man, it will give the Russophiles a real headache. Watch their invectives – the one of only two things they are best at – fly!
I’d say I knew you guys will become friends! Cool!
You should start a new trade union!
“A nation ruled in this way cannot long endure”
Well, it’s endured a couple of centuries longer than America thus far.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html
I’m sure they’re interested in your apocalyptic predictions, but I’m confident Russia will still be around when you’re not.
Oh, look! Somebody else jumped on the “lost decade” bandwagon. Maybe you can sue for copyright infringement.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101196.html
Well Russia in one form or another will probably continue to exist for some time to come, however this reminds me of an old Soviet joke:
A man knocks on the door of a communal apartment, a voice from behind the door asks, ‘who’s there?’, the man says, ‘Does Rabinovich live here?’ the voice replies, ‘No’, the man asks,’ And who are you?’ the voice replies, ‘I’m Rabinovich’, puzzled, the man says, ‘how come then you say you don’t live here’ the voice replies’ I don’t live, I exist’
Igor, again: what are the alternatives?
What do you mean by alternatives?
For an individual one alternative could be to go where the grass is greener, for Russia as a country or the Russian people, the alternative is to change, kick out the thieves that are in the government, stop listening to propaganda and finally, at long last, take matters in our own hands, stop allowing ourselves to be treated like crap by those in power. As Igor Guberman brilliantly put it:
“Побаб уже, ебена мать, умом Россию понимать”
I was talking about Rabinovich’s alternatives to existing.
“For an individual one alternative could be to go where the grass is greener” – the grass is greener where they need you.
If they do not need you in Russia, it’s only logical to leave in search for a place where they do.
“kick out the thieves that are in the government, stop listening to propaganda and finally, at long last, take matters in our own hands, stop allowing ourselves to be treated like crap by those in power” – where do I go to sign up for your party, Igor?
Seriously, man, putting aside Guberman and побаб, do you believe that the reason Russia is not a democracy is the lack of those who wish to “take matters in their own hands”?
Or is there some other reason?
Ever wondered why they never have democracies in Muslim countries?
Rabinovich always has the option of going to Israel and existing on a settlement there, which would probably be a much more exciting form of existence with plenty of opportunities to shoot at others and get shot at.
There are just too many people in the world today so for 90% of them/us are not really needed anywhere, almost any one of us, apart for a handful of genuinely unique geniuses, can be replaced. So it’s not a question of going where you are needed for most of us, i.e. if you have some unique skills or knowledge you will be needed of course but then the problem is often communication; how do you go about telling the people in the place you want to be about your skills and knowledge etc.
In Russia, however, one sometimes can’t helping getting the impression that not only are you not really needed here but people actually hate you so it becomes a question of going someplace where people don’t hate you so much.
Dmitry, I don’t have a part of my own, but if you’re willing to sign up you’re welcome, you’ll be member number 2 (me being number 1), I don’t know how many people we need to get registered though, still it might be worth a try, you know get the word around in the ru.net, throw together a website with our programme and an application form and once we’ve got enough members go and get registered. If you’re down with this, let me know I’ll give you my email.
No, I don’t think it’s the lack of people willing to take matters in their own hands, it’s more complicated than that. In fact I think we’ve got plenty of people that want to and do take matters in their own hands in various forms, imho it’s practically totally lack of mutual respect among the Russians that keeps us from building a real democracy here. You see it’s in the heads, you have to be willing to step down if you get voted out, and you have to be tolerant of dissenting opinions and in Russia, not just in the government, but even ordinary people seem incapable to debate and discuss things, remember that piece by Zhvanetsky in which he talks about debates Russian style – if somebody disagrees with you, you don’t rebut their arguments, you tell them they’re ugly, fat/skinny, a total loser and a Jew (the real last nail in their coffin), you try and humiliate your opponent, discredit them and nobody really cares about the real issue you’re discussing.
I think they do have democracies in some Muslim countries, the Maldives are democratic far as I know, Malaysia has an ‘elective monarchy’, then again there’s Turkey
“with plenty of opportunities to shoot at others and get shot at” – I can imagine that.
“There are just too many people in the world today so for 90% of them/us are not really needed anywhere”
– now that’s a revelation, Igor. Get kids, kids usually love and need parents.
“if you have some unique skills or knowledge you will be needed of course but then the problem is often communication; how do you go about telling the people in the place you want to be about your skills and knowledge etc.” –
er, biting with your teeth and fighting with your hands for an opportunity to show you can be an examplary slave of the capital goes?
“In Russia, however, one sometimes can’t helping getting the impression that not only are you not really needed here but people actually hate you so it becomes a question of going someplace where people don’t hate you so much.”
Get kids, again. Start a family. Build a house. I suppose you’re still in your 20ies, basing on the things that you care about.
“but if you’re willing to sign up you’re welcome”
I’d agree providing we both age going to be members #1,5 :)
“lack of mutual respect among the Russians that keeps us from building a real democracy here”
Igor, I’m serious. My country lost 170.000.000 building some strange things during the whole XX century.
What it needs now is some 30-40 safe and calm years.
In the beginning of the XX century Stolypin asked for 10, but we’ve lost too much since then.
We do not need great chages, least of all.
“it’s practically totally lack of mutual respect among the Russians that keeps us from building a real democracy here”
Bingo. We never had knights and our weak nobility was eradicated in the XX century.
“not just in the government, but even ordinary people seem incapable to debate and discuss things”
Bingo. Russia was created, fending off Mongols, around one strong power – Moscow. All the other less strong powers (AKA counterbalances) perished then.
“if somebody disagrees with you, you don’t rebut their arguments, you tell them they’re ugly, fat/skinny, a total loser and a Jew”
I humbly propoe to compare the way you talk to people on the site to the way people talk to each other. It’s not that bad a comparison for Russia, I’d say.
“Malaysia has an ‘elective monarchy’, then again there’s Turkey”
I don’t know about Malaysia, it’s far away, but Russia has the same “prliamentary democracy” written in profile. Without kings, however.
Turkey is very much a military democracy – it goes closer to becoming a theocracy every time the military are weakened.
But when I asked the question I wanted to give you another answer: one of the reason Russians never had democracy is b/c they never had Popes as a counterbalance to the King. Look through the world political map, see the countries once under strong influence of Catholicism, and you’l see.
We never had popes, the Muslim world never had popes. Religion and state were never equal here and there. I, however, prefer state superior to religion superior.
I must say, Dmitry, you repeat my thoughts, just much more eloquently than I can. You should debate more often with RV and R John who appear to have some brains/ genuine interest in the topic. The rest of the guys here are just hopeless.
Hey, thanks!
“The rest of the guys here are just hopeless.”
No, there’s more guys with brains here that just RV and R John.
Nevertheless, in general, arguing on the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics – even if you win, and so on… So you’re right about the majority of beople with grey brains here…
As for the US, it is by far the most politically-correct society in the entire world — which translates into a benign totalitarianism.
Just try discussing anything other than the weather and the ball game at your job and see what happens.
Hey Dimebag,
Most people are boring wherever you are…but not all are free.
Think about it.
Hey Walmart,
Most Americans are boring … and very few are as free-thinking and broad-minded as the rest of the world
The two things (in fact, the only things) Americans like to talk about are the weather and the ball game
The pile of infantile accusations piled against professor Chomsky is obscene. I hoe he never gets to read it. It would take too long to try to disprove all of them. So, let me take one post at random:
Turtler // May 11, 2010 at 3:15 am
Obviously Chomsky never bothered to poke his head out of his hidey-hole while he was alive
He is dead? When did he die?
http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/chomsky/index.html
Noam Chomsky
Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus)
MIT Linguistics and Philosophy
Office Number: 32-D840
email: chomsky@mit.edu
tel: 617-253-7819
Of course, this is the same idiot…
This “idiot” is the greatest linguist in history and has a higher IQ than all of you here combined.
… who thinks that the destruction of one medicine factory in the Sudan caused hundreds of thousands of deaths
He does? He thinks that one factory bombing killed more than 100,000 people? Doesn’t sound plausible. Unless you are lying, please provide the quote where he says this.
In an interview in the Dec. 8-21 issue of the Indian magazine, Frontline, Chomsky says of the German embassy estimates,
The German Embassy in Sudan issued an estimate (I don’t know how they obtained it); the Ambassador said that his guess was several tens of thousands of deaths.
Chomsky quote
— review includes the assessment of the German Ambassador to Sudan in the Harvard International Review that “several tens of thousands” died as a result of the bombing and the similar estimate in the Boston Globe by the regional director of the respected Near East foundation, who had field experience in Sudan, along with the immediate warning by Human Rights Watch that a “terrible crisis” might follow, reporting very severe consequences of the bombing even in the first few weeks.)—
Noam Chomsky is a Hypocrite and charlatan who never
It turns out that the source of this claim is a 5-page article written by former German ambassador to Sudan, Werner Daum. The Summer 2001 issue of Harvard International Review included an article by Daum entitled “Universalism and the West: an agenda for understanding.” I was unable to obtain a copy of the article, but the abstract indicates that the article,
Argues that human rights must be culturally interpreted, based on a society’s conception of individual-social relationships, that social and economic rights must be considered, and that the US should be more modest in dealing with other countries.
Hence, the main source of the tens of thousands of deaths estimates in fact appears to be from a single, short article whose main topic is only tangentially related to the issue of deaths from the Sudan bombing.
The surprising thing is that Chomsky actually damns himself in previous interviews about this. I assume that most rational readers assume (as did I), that when Chomsky claims the German embassy produced estimates of the effects of the attack, that some sort of serious statistical effort was undertaken to estimate additional mortality. In fact, these figures are basically just pie-in-the sky guesses.
In an interview in the Dec. 8-21 issue of the Indian magazine, Frontline, Chomsky says of the German embassy estimates,
The German Embassy in Sudan issued an estimate (I don’t know how they obtained it); the Ambassador said that his guess was several tens of thousands of deaths.
He doesn’t even know how they obtained the estimate. Well, if it is now okay to cite figures for which one doesn’t even know the methodology, then lets have a free-for-all of citing every tenuous statistic out there!
Sources: Unersalism and the West: An Agenda for Understanding. Werner Daum, Harvard nternational Review, Vol.23, No.2, Summer 2001.
That is a delicious word salad, Boris. I am not entirely sure why I am replying to someone who clearly thought it was beneath him to (re-)read his own post and make sure that his verbal diarrhoea at least made sense on some basic linguistic level, but here it is anyhow.
The exact quote:
“Sudan is an interesting case. A few Cruise missiles destroyed a pharmaceutical factory, one that happened to produce half the pharmaceutical supplies for the country, about 90 per cent of its critical medicines, and also apparently almost all its veterinary medicines.
The West is willing to accept the fact that two or three guards were killed; that is collateral damage. But what were the effects on the population of a poor African country? What happens when you destroy half its pharmaceutical supplies and its veterinary medicines? The country is under sanctions so cannot easily obtain these medicines elsewhere (the British government, for instance, refused to provide anti-malarial medicines to Sudan after this happened).
There have been virtually no attempts to estimate the effects of the attack. The German Embassy in Sudan issued an estimate (I don’t know how they obtained it); the Ambassador said that his guess was several tens of thousands of deaths. One specialist who investigated the matter is the regional coordinator for a major NGO, the old and respectable Middle East Foundation. His estimate is tens of thousands. He could not do a careful study; it is a guess based on what he has seen.
Watching CNN and BBC is horrifying. When they talk of September 11 there is justified outrage and shock. “How can human beings sink to such a level?” they ask, rightly. When they talk about the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan it is in a few cool, dispassionate phrases, with no particular comment: “unfortunate”, “heart-rending but necessary” (that’s The Economist), part of a just war. In a way they are right. This is a normal event in modern history. It is entirely normal for the European powers and the United States, an offshoot, just to massacre people.”
Click to access 18250080.pdf
It should be obvious to anyone endowed with at least a room temperature IQ that the exact figures do not matter in this context; the fact that they are not available in the first place (and that there hasn’t been a serious attempt to quantify them) is part of the point Comsky is trying to make.
But I do understand where you are coming from, my dear: reading is such a terrible chore, and trying to grasp what one has read makes one’s head hurt such an awful lot sometimes. You really should just drop the entire endeavour, no good can come of it.
Sorry to interrupt.
Just to sum up.
You bomb a farmaceutical factory, striping the country of half of medicines it had, and which it needed desperately.
Then you say you won’t give them any medicines to heal malaria and so on.
Then you say you’ve only collaterally damaged 3 guards as a result of bombardment.
” Noam Chomsky is a Hypocrite and charlatan who never.”
Borya, did your mother read you The Little Engine That Could too much?
“Chomsky quote: — review includes the assessment of the German Ambassador to Sudan in the Harvard International Review that “several tens of thousands” died as a result of the bombing”
Thanks, Boris. So, Turtler indeed lied when he attributed “hundreds of thousands” to Chomsky.
Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir
It should be obvious to anyone endowed with at least a room temperature IQ that the American and Israeli war actions are most Outrageous for the Neo-Stalinists og and in particular Putin’s henchmen .
When the Indians are pumping the Sudanes peoples oil Noam Chomsky speaks to V.K. Ramachandran about the warcriminals .
http://www.signandsight.com/features/894.html
The 200,000 slaughtered Muslims of Darfur not arouse even half a quarter of the fury caused by 200-times fewer dead in Lebanon? Must we deduce that Muslims killed by other Muslims don’t count – whether in the eyes of Muslim authorities or viewed through the bad conscience of the west? This conclusion has its weak spots, because if the Russian Army – Christian, and blessed by their popes – razes the capital of Chechnian Muslims (Grosny, with 400,000 residents) killing tens of thousands of children in the process, this doesn’t count either. The Security Council does not hold meeting after meeting, and the Organization of Islamic States piously averts its eyes. From that we may conclude that the world is appalled only when a Muslim is killed by Israelis.
Should we thus presume that the public at large implicitly endorses the ideas that Ahmadinedjad shouts at the top of his lungs? And yet so many of those sceptics who display consternation over bombings in Lebanon seem shocked if you suspect them of anti-Semitism. I want to trust them. We don’t want to imagine that the entire planet is mired in anti-Jewish paranoia! But then the matter becomes even more puzzling. What is the source of this hemiplegia? Why is the world frightened by Israeli bombs alone?
Perhaps the reason why the deaths in Lebanon are so disproportionately shocking as compared with the starving people of Darfur and the ruins of Chechnya is that they are seen as a surrealistic geopolitical signal. Anyone who follows the news in Gaza or Qana does not simply count the dead on a particularly violent day – rather, the coffins of these victims encircle the aura of a fatal promise – a promise that the hundreds of thousands of corpses from Africa and the Caucasus have no chance of approaching. Haven’t legions of experts – for decades now – identified the Mideast conflict as the centre of the world’s chaos and the key to its pacification? Is there any diplomat who does not repeat ad nauseum the formula about the gates to a hell of future wars versus the gates to world harmony, all of which open in Jerusalem? A never-changing script haunts 21st century minds. The script maintains that everything is decided on the banks of the Jordan. In its most grim version, that means: As long as four million Israelis and as many Palestinians are facing off against one another, 300 million Arabs and 1.5 billion Muslims are condemned to live in hate, bloody slaughter and desperation. And the rosier version: We just need peace in Jerusalem to put out the fires in Tehran, Karachi, Khartoum and Baghdad and to set the course for universal harmony.
Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset
I wonder if the ‘Intellectual Midgets’ Alexander Cockburn and Noam Chomsky give Putin and his
henchman Viktor Bout credit for any dead Black people ?
Ever thought why they’re called intellectuals and you are not?
I am just banned by the ‘Intellectual Midget’ Anatoly Karlin . He may prefer to call it censurship . He may prefer to call it censorship
http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2010/05/09/reconciling-stalin-with-victory/
His Existential crisis
An existential crisis may result from:
The sense of being alone and isolated in the world;
A new-found grasp or appreciation of one’s mortality;
Believing that one’s life has no purpose or external meaning;
Awareness of one’s freedom and the consequences of accepting or rejecting that freedom;
An existential crisis is often provoked by a significant event in the person’s life — marriage, separation, major loss, the death of a loved one; a life-threatening experience; psycho-active drug use; adult children leaving home; reaching a personally-significant age (turning 30, turning 40, etc.), etc. Usually, it provokes the sufferer’s introspection about personal mortality, thus revealing the psychological repression of said awareness.
An existential crisis may resemble anomie (a personal condition resulting from a lack of norms) or a midlife crisis. Sometimes, an existential crisis stems from a person’s new perception of life and existence.
When a person faces the paradox of believing his or her life important whilst thinking that human existence is meaningless and without purpose, cognitive dissonance occurs, overcoming many innate psychological and cultural defense mechanisms.
Analogously, existentialism posits that a person can and does define the meaning and purpose of their life, and therefore must choose to resolve the crisis of existence.
We think that it will be very difficult to get rid of putin. He still has many friends and supporters. Among them you can still find for example some powerful and very rich oligarchs., who have stolen or taken posession of huge amounts of money in the years after the cold war. Speaking of stolen money: Putin alledgedly is accused of having stolen billions of dollar of russian money and having it transferred to anonymous bank accounts in places like switzerland or off shore islands.