Showing posts with label Putin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Putin. Show all posts

Friday, January 20, 2012

Die russischen 5000 Dollar Bettler


Hat hier jemand zu tief ins Wodkaglas geschaut, oder stimmt hier was mit der Übersetzung nicht? Auf die Frage, was denn der Westen an Russland nicht verstehe, anwortete der angebliche Zoologe, Soziologe, und Ex-Redenschreiber Simon Kordonsky für Putin:

"Russland ist anders organisiert. Ein Bettler in New York und ein Bettler in Moskau sind nicht das Gleiche. In Russland ein armer Mensch zu sein ist ein Beruf. Die Invalidität, dass er zum Beispiel keine Hände hat, wird ausgenützt, um Einkommen zu lukrieren. Damit verdient man bis zu 5000 Dollar im Monat. Im Wesentlichen geben intelligente Menschen Almosen, damit wollen sie Buße tun für ihre Intelligenz, die andere nicht haben."

Über welchen verqueren Geisteszuschnitt muß jemand verfügen, um sich auf so widerliche Weise selbst zu widersprechen? 5000-6000 Dollar verdienen in etwa durchschnittliche Programmierer oder Anwälte in Moskau, wo die Lebenskosten allerdings dementsprechend hoch sind. Ist der Mann nie aus Moskau oder St. Petersburg rausgekommen? Hat er nie die Babushki auf ihren kleinen Schemeln am Straßenrand sitzen sehen, wenn sie die kärglichen Schätze ihrer harten Gartenarbeit zu verkaufen versuchen? Weiß er, wie niedrig Pensionen sind, wie wenig Ärzte oder Lehrer in seinem Land verdienen? Betreiben Soziologen in Russland keine empirische Feldforschung oder hat der Mann sich den akademischen Titel auf dieselbe Weise "erworben" wie die Mehrzahl der Abgeordneten der russischen Duma?

Das Interview im österreichischen Standard "Die Russen sind Ressourcenempfänger, aber keine Bürger" ist mit Sicherheit eines der seltsamsten und teilweise widerlichsten, die in letzter Zeit unkommentiert veröffentlicht wurden. Falls die angebliche, scheinbare Oligarchennähe des Herrn Kordonsky tatsächlich zuträfe, dann hätten wir damit aber auch ein Dokument vorliegen, das mehr oder weniger ungeschminkt die Sichtweise derjenigen andeutet, welche in Russland "die Ressourcen verteilen". Es ist jedenfalls kaum vorstellbar, daß Kordonsky sich eine derartige Verhöhnung der Armen und Mittellosen (in seiner Sprache "Ressourcenlosen") daheim in Russland erlauben würde. Und man fragt sich unwillkürlich, ob die markigen Sprüche Putins von seinen Redenschreibern stammen oder jene eigentümlich martialische Sprechweise und sein machohaftes Gebaren in der Öffentlichkeit auf letztere abgefärbt hat.

Es geht hier nicht darum, den empörten Russlandkritiker zu spielen. Putins "gelenkte Demokratie" ist tatsächlich nicht so wesentlich verschieden von der Kleptokratie der USA, dem "offenen Schmiergeldsystem" ("open system of bribary"), wie es der Comedian Bill Maher regelmäßig beschreibt. Die Kritik und Enttäuschung vieler Russen bezüglich der "westlichen Demokratie" sind in vielen Punkten berechtigt. Aber die berechnende Gier und Maßlosigkeit der russischen Oligarchie mit pseudo-wissenschaftlichen Begriffen zu bemänteln oder zu rechtfertigen, ist genauso unerträglich.






Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Cheerleaders of War


You may think about Putin what you want, but let's be honest, the whole world has reason to thank him for his news channel "Russia Today" - bravely counterbalancing the US-biased media landscape all around. Take for instance the following report on the "war is inevitable"- cheerleaders in the country of exceptionalists, constantly promoting the next U.S. invasion:



Sunday, December 25, 2011

Saint Gorbachev


He's still the Saint of the collapse of the Soviet Union - at least for clueless Western Mass Media: Mikhail Gorbachev: Fox News as well as practically all the print and tv media around the world, especially in the West, reported enthusiastically about his recent public announcement "I would step down in Putin's place".


As if the man had to say something. For all the copy & paste cheap-Jacks, in Russia Gorbachev's status is nearly that of  "persona non grata". He's one of the most hated figures in the country, not only because he's blamed for having demolished the Soviet Union, but also because of the accompanying and  following catastrophic developments in the former USSR Republics which lead to thousands of deaths, while he still was in charge, not to mention his disastrous alcohol prohibition campaign.
Gorbachev's popularity can be estimated on the basis of the results of the Russian presidential election in 1996, where he received 0,5% of the votes in the first round. Current protesters all around Russia would rather go home and vote for Putin at the next Presidential Elections to be held on 4 March 2012, instead of following Gorby's advice. But fact is, his voice has no weight in modern Russia whatsoever. The Fox News headline "Gorbachev vs. Putin" is thus pointless. 

Friday, July 22, 2011

The Illusion of the Independent Dictator


At the end of a previous posting „Grown Men Do Not Need Leaders“ there was a question which is reformulated here: Although in most (Western) democracies there are independent institutions controlling the power of the elected governments (like e.g. supreme court, financial regulation or consumer protection), how come that it doesn't work the way Popper believed it should? (And how come that more and more people have the impression of being faced with a democracy solely on paper, a faked democracy?)
One of the replies to this posting was: „it doesn't work without leaders! People need a leader, a strong hand guiding them!“

One could have expected other objections like that - in practice - the mentioned institutions are neither free nor independent. Thus, the reply is surprising on the one hand. On the other hand, it is not surprising at all, because one can still hear it so often. If you go to Russia for instance, you will hear it all the time. Putin is said to be Russia's hero, because he's the strong hand Russia needs and he prevented the country (or the empire) from further breakdown – in contrast to the much hated Gorbatchov and Jelzin in the nineties. Also in the US, you can hear the call for a strong leadership in ever election campaign and people are often disgusted by fruitless congressional debates. The more chaos, the more demanding the wish for a strong leader. Sometimes it appears to be a kind of reflex … it seems you can't kill it. But it's not a reflex. It's an illusion.

Let's go back to 1944, when Karl Popper's „The Open Society and it's Enemies“ was about to be published. Hitler and Stalin were still in power and they were the epitome of strong leaders – no one can doubt that. Popper stated the theory of (uncontrolled) sovereignty as follows: „that political power is practically unchecked, or for the demand that it ought to be so; together with the implication that the main question left is to get this power into the best hands.“ (chapter 7/I)
But before he starts to argue against this theory, he calls in question the picture of the independent/almighty leader some people were still maintaining at that time. And it is these simple remarks questioning an old and problematic concept – not even arguing against it- which make Popper's writings still so valuable.

„Without entering into a detailed criticism, I wish to point out that there are serious objections against a rash and implicit acceptance of this theory. Whatever its speculative merits may appear to be, it is certainly a very unrealistic assumption. No political power has ever been unchecked, and as long as men remain human (as long as the ‘Brave New World’ has not materialized), there can be no absolute and unrestrained political power. So long as one man cannot accumulate enough physical power in his hands to dominate all others, just so long must he depend upon his helpers. Even the most powerful tyrant depends upon his secret police, his henchmen and his hangmen. This dependence means that his power, great as it may be, is not unchecked, and that he has to make concessions, playing one group off against another. It means that there are other political forces, other powers besides his own, and that he can exert his rule only by utilizing and pacifying them. This shows that even the extreme cases of sovereignty are never cases of pure sovereignty. They are never cases in which the will or the interest of one man (or, if there were such a thing, the will or the interest of one group) can achieve his aim directly, without giving up some of it in order to enlist powers which he cannot conquer. And in an overwhelming number of cases, the limitations of political power go much further than this.“ (Popper [1945], chapter 7/1)

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

God's Own State: Russia

Boiko the Great
News agency Reuters reported last week "Russian dairy to dismiss women over abortions". The story is about Russian "oligarch" Vasily Boiko-Veliky announcing his orthodox fundamentalist staffing policy in an interview. His dairy "Russkoye Moloko" was "established  to promote the revival of the Orthodox church in Russia" by applying new rules: no new employees having previously performed abortion, a wedding ultimatum for the unmarried (living in sin) until October 14 , ... and the wildfire catastrophy in Russia this summer being a punishment for sin but improvable by suggested weddings. (Back to the old days of spell and counter-spell)


Boiko-Veliky (his artist name meaning "Boiko the Great") is not the only Russian business man or politician (which often comes to the same thing in Putin's Russia) carrying his prayer-book . Putin himself embraces and propagates "traditional confessions" - as he called Russian Orthodox Church. And as with Yeltsin's tennis club - which anyone had to visit in order to get acquainted to him and make some money, it almost comes down to an obligation in todays Russia to expose oneself as a believer, not unlike for U.S. politicians in order to win elections. No TV-event without orthodox priests.

German Sterligoff
Another Russian business man, German Sterligoff, showed similar fundamentalist attitudes towards labour and politics. In a talk  together with Boiko the Great and some journalists of radio station "Echo of Moscow" he expressed his religious redneck views as shown by the following Question-Answer excerpt [translated by a member of base 2014].

Interview in Echo of Moscow

Question: What shall we do with all the godless people, gays and lesbians?

Sterligoff: As it is written by apostle Paul "there shall be blood on their heads" [this quotation is rather known by Leviticus 20:33: "If a man has intercourse with another man in the same manner as with a woman, both of them have committed a disgusting perversion. They shall be put to death by stoning", comment by base2014]

Question: Are  there gays and lesbians mentioned explicitly?

Sterligoff: Yes, it said specifically about men having intercourse with other men.

Question: So, they ought to be killed?

Sterligoff: Yes, unconditionally.
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Question: German, do you exercise birching?

Sterligoff: Birching whom?

Question: Children?

Sterligoff: Yes sure! It's written in the holy scripture: "you are an enemy to your son if you spare birch for him" ... It's important to do it with love. Because, if you punish your children with anger, it humiliates them - ...

Question: Do you birch your employees?

Sterligoff: No, I don't. When it comes to abortions - since already 15 years it has been forbidden [in my firm]  - I pay no salary to those who kill children. I don't have such female employees.

Question: Does that mean that your employees are aware of this precondition?

Sterligoff: Yes, during our interviews I ask everyone if they have performed abortion or not. As a rule, they don't lie and answer openly. It's such a question where it's hard to lie.

Question: But you haven't issued any printed directives on this topic?

Sterligoff: No, everybody simply knows it. It's self-evident because it's scary to work with a murderer of a child. Because you don't know - since he/she had managed to kill a child - ... The same applies to men, bacause some of them force their broads to perform abortion.
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Question: This is a very important moment for me, because I have to understand that this political correctness which we all curse all the time and which exists in Europe as well as in the U.S. ... Maybe the time has came for us to adopt certain provisions or to initiate their adoption?

Sterligoff: I'm convinced that we have to adopt all your laws based on the holy scripture.