EDITORIAL
Russian Humiliation on American TV
Even we who have nothing but scorn and contempt for the manner in which most Russians have behaved over the past decade, choosing to be ruled by a proud KGB spy and watching him roll back their wretched state to Soviet-era darkness, were somewhat appalled by the humiliation Russia received at the hands of the American TV show “The Amazing Race” in its recent episode which took place in Russia.
In a startlingly accurate set of images from the environs of St. Petersburg, Russia was exposed as a backwards nation reeking of cow manure and languishing in the darkness of the past. Loud and obnoxious, crude and vulgar, dirty and bedraggled, that was the image of Russia that millions of Americans saw depicted on the show. Americans roared with laughter as the contestants were forced to dress up like “babushkas” with kerchiefs and ill-fitting dresses to shovel cow poop and “dig potatoes” as the Russians say.
For all viewers could see, Russia was little different from the prior stop on the contestant’s list, namely the impoverished African nation of Ghana. Surveys clearly show, of course, that Russia keeps company with such states when it comes to topics like official corruption and democracy.
America is, of course, absolutely vital to Russia. Only last week, reports once again confirmed that the Russian stock market is totally enslaved by American demand for Russian crude oil, and of course the stock market is merely a reflection of the undeniable fact that Russia depends on the price of crude oil for its economic survival.
For the past decade, rather than actually try to modernize and develop his country so that humiliating images like these would become a thing of the past, all the Russian dictator Putin has done is to deny the problem, attack foreigners who point it out, and feverishly suppress self-reflection wihtin his own country. Like the infamous Emperor with his “new clothes” Putin prefers to simply dwell in a world of lies and illusions the same way his Soviet ancestors did, and it is not surprising since he is proudly one of them — a relic of the KGB system that destroyed the USSR becuase of its inability to see its own faults, admit them and reform.
Regardless of crazed Russian propaganda, Russia remains a joke of a nation, a country that idles in the backwaters of civilization and its taken seriously by nobody except the small defenseless states against which it uses its bully powers of intimidation and attack.
Such a nation cannot long survive.
La Russophobe 
What can I say…..I lol-ed :)
“Still, that particular challenge was nothing next to the task of isolating three classical ditties amidst a roomful of clanging Russian pianists. Somewhere, I think, John Cage was smiling. One by one, our plucky Americans bent their ears to the pianos, like Indians listening for the next train, and each time, they came away more befuddled than before. “It’s Mussorgsky. It’s Tchaikovsky. Never mind, let’s go see about Len and his film.”
All in all, this was an unusually high level of sophistication for “The Amazing Race,” so we can’t blame the producers for leavening things with transvestitism and dung jokes”
I must quote directly….If one bothers to read the article you linked to….one comes away with the impression that the show was a rare burst of sophistication among the usual unsophisticated morass of American reality TV. The show actually required its participants to be exposed to high culture…oh, the humiliation :)
You know, your utter inability to locate and link to a source that actually supports your ourlandish editorializing never ceases to amaze me.
By the way, there is no such thing as “the American demand for Russian crude”, or didn’t you know ? The US buys most of it’s crude from Canada, Venezuela and the Middle East – look it up :)
For all viewers could see, Russia was little different from the prior stop on the contestant’s list, namely the impoverished African nation of Ghana.
Couldn’t it be that Ghana will develop to the better? They might fight corruption, build up a robust economy, organise political parties which deserve this name etc. Unlikely? Perhaps, but in the case of Russia, this is even more unlikely. I would say that it is impossible.