Putin’s Russia: Poor, sick and Ignorant . . . Forever!

Boris Kagarlitsky (sure no Russophobe, he), writing in the Moscow Times:

When initial reports appeared in the media that a new bill had been introduced that would alter the way the state regulates education, the arts and social services, many people refused to believe that it would actually be passed. But when deputies actually passed the bill, hope still remained that President Dmitry Medvedev would not sign it. But the law has been passed and signed.

The document is a death sentence for universal access to education and health care. By introducing a per capita financing structure, the law makes it financially impossible for rural and small-town schools, hospitals and clinics to continue functioning. Those that do continue operating will be forced to lower the quality of their work. This is because under the new law, the more students a teacher instructs and the more patients a doctor treats, the greater the funding their host institutions will receive from the state. In addition, schools, hospitals, museums and universities that currently receive insufficient state funding to cover their operating expenses will go bankrupt and close.

Goble on the Horrors of Neo-Soviet Bureaucracy

Paul Goble reports:

Not only is the Russian bureaucracy now larger than the Soviet one it replaced, but it is more Kafkaesque, with those who must deal with it far less certain about who decides what or even whether there is anyone who can decide anything, according to a leading Moscow social critic.

EDITORIAL: Putins’ Raving Russophile Minions

EDITORIAL

Putin’s Raving Russophile Minions

Things did not start off on the right foot for new U.S. President Barack Obama.  First his attempt to take the oath of office went haywire and had to be done all over again the next day. Then it was revealed that the famous musicians he hired to play at the inauguration were string-synching. And then no sooner had he announced the closure of the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, than it was revealed that a prisoner previously released from the facility because of human rights concerns like those Obama is purporting to defend has become a major leadership figure in the Al Quaeda terrorist network.

Given Obama’s continuing and very disturbing silence concerning such Russia issues as race murder, energy warfare against Ukraine and the Markelov assassination (he’s been president for a week now, or maybe we should say weak, and not a peep out of him — though he’s found time to fire a shot across China’s bow), all these distractions might have made us worry about the prospects for the Obama presidency, particularly where Russia is concerned, were it not for the lunatic ravings of Boris Kagarlitsky in his most recent Moscow Times column.