September 30, 2011 — Contents

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 30 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  We Told You So

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Estonia Whips Russian Butt

(3) EDITORIAL:  The Russian Economy is Collapsing

(4)  Viking Russia, Land of Barbarians

(5)  Andrei Zubov, Russophobe

(6) Kara-Murza on Putin’s Return

(7)  CARTOON: Yelkin on Putin’s Return

NOTE:  In her latest column on the mighty Pajamas Media megablog, LR publisher and founder Kim Zigfeld details the absolute vindication of the blog she started on April 2, 2006, in order to  warn the world that neo-Soviet Russia under Vladimir Putin was here for good.

NOTE:  In her latest column on the powerful and influential American Thinker blog, Kim lashes out at the cowardly, craven evil that is Gordon Hahn, a representative Kremlin stooge working feverishly to help lower resistance to Vladimir Putin as president for life.

EDITORIAL: We Told you So

EDITORIAL

We Told you So

On September 28, 2011, a perfect metaphor for the horror that is Vladimir Putin’s Russia appeared in The Independent, which has over the years been responsible for some of the toughest and most insightful reporting on Russia (hat tip: Streetwise Professor).

The paper wrote about how thousands upon thousands of stray dogs roam the streets of Moscow, how they have killed Muscovites in packs and how they pose all manner of serious health concerns, to say nothing of betraying Russia’s eternal poverty regardless of the propaganda the state may churn out.  Yet Russians, idiots that they are, are fighting to keep these dogs on the streets, and do what they can to care for them.

Similarly Josef Stalin is beloved by Russians, even though he murdered more of them than any other person who ever lived.

And similarly, the proud KGB spy and murderer of Starovoitova, of Litvinenko, of Politikovskaya, of Yushenkov, of Shchekochikhin, of Girenko, of Klebnikov, of Kozlov, of Estemirova, of Markelov and of so very many others, known as Vladimir Putin, is being embraced as he declares himself president for life. Lenin, Stalin, Putin.

On April 2, 2006, we warned the world that it would be so.

EDITORIAL: Estonia Whips Russian Butt

EDITORIAL

Estonia Whips Russian Butt

Reader “Robert” directs us to a BBC web page which compares the performance of the nations in post-Soviet space on economics, health and democracy. It provides three charts which reveal shocking facts about the failure of Putin’s resource-rich Russia when compared with tiny Estonia, the leader of the group.

First comes economics, which reveals not one but three stunning insights about Russia:

EDITORIAL: The Russian Economy is Collapsing

EDITORIAL

The Russian Economy is Collapsing

In 2008, nearly $130 billion flew out of Russia, erasing the modicum of inflows registered in 2006 and 2007. For its size, Russia as an investment destination pales in comparison to South Korea. Total equity portfolio inflow into Russia in 2009 was just $3.4 billion, according to World Bank data, making it the lowest of the big emerging markets by far. India, China and Brazil all registered inflows over $20 billion. A recent opinion poll by the Levada Centre shows that 22% of Russia’s adult population would like to leave the country for good, up from 7% in 2007. It is the highest figure since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when only 18% said they wanted to get out. Over 50% of Russian entrepreneurs said that they wanted leave the country. “From a macro perspective, I don’t want to be in Russia,” says Justin Leverenz, emerging markets portfolio manager at Oppenheimer Funds in New York. “From an investor’s point of view, Russian politics are far beyond what I’m able to analyze.”

Believe it or not, those words appear in a recent article in which the author is trying to put a positive spin on Russia.  Can you imagine what Russia’s economic critics are saying these days?

Viking Russia, Land of Barbarians

Alexei Bayer, writing in the Moscow Times:

The origins of the Russian state and its early history help explain the country’s modern political makeup.

According to the Kievan Primary Chronicle, compiled around 1110, Slavic tribes invited Scandinavian prince Rurik to rule over them in the 9th century. But the history of the Viking expansion in Western Europe suggests that an “invitation” was hardly necessary. In the West, the Vikings began by raiding settlements, pillaging them and dragging their inhabitants off to slavery. They set up outposts to collect tributes, gradually becoming feudal lords. They adopted the local language and customs and eventually melded with the local population.

The Norsemen followed the same pattern in Britain, France and Sicily. The Varangians, as they were known in Russia, became feudal lords and the name of their tribe, the Rus, gave Russia its name just as Normandy was named after the Normans.

Andrei Zubov, Russophobe

Standpoint reports:

“Why do you hate your own country so much?” This was the angry reaction of one Russian who had just listened to a devastating critique of everything that Communism had done to his country between 1917 and 1990. The event was a seminar at the Moscow School of Political Studies and the speaker who had provoked this outburst was Andrei Zubov, one of Russia’s most brilliant — and most controversial — historians.

Zubov, who is the editor and co-author of a two-volume history of Russia in the 20th century, has a burning desire to make Russians face up to the realities of the Soviet era. He used his talk (which I attended as a participant in a later seminar) to describe in relentless detail the way in which all that was good in Russia’s past — not least the flowering of culture that took place in the second half of the 19th century — was destroyed by Lenin, Stalin and their associates. But his remarks about today’s Russia were no less striking.

Kara-Murza on Putin’s Return

Spotlight on Russia reports:

One of the surest signs of repression in Russia is a flourishing culture of political jokes. The 1930s and the 1970s, in particular, bear testimony to this. In 2008, when Vladimir Putin tricked term limits by becoming prime minister under hand-picked President Dmitri Medvedev, a new joke was born in the Moscow intelligentsia’s kitchens. The year is 2020. Putin and Medvedev are in a bar, drinking beer. Putin looks up and asks: “Dima, do you remember which one of us is president, and which one is prime minister?” Medvedev thinks for a short while, then replies: “I think you are president, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and I am prime minister.” “Then it’s your turn to pay for the beer,” responds Putin.

CARTOON: Yelkin on Putin’s Return

Source: Ellustrator.