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Annals of Neo-Soviet Self-Destruction

Filed under: Eastern Europe

Russia is a fascinating country in that, no matter how extreme or bizarre you might find a given bit of breaking news to be today, there's always something that will happen tomorrow that will make today's events seem perfectly tepid by comparison.

So we might have learned yesterday that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is seeking to justify his insidious crackdown on human rights by comparing himself to Franklin Roosevelt, and been shocked by the news. After all, while it's true that FDR was a rat bastard who created race-based concentration camps, tried to subvert the Supreme Court, lied about his medical status and broke George Washington's time-honored tradition of a two-term presidency, it's equally true that each and every time FDR stood for election he did so in a hotly contested campaign against an organized party that had previously held power. Vladimir Putin, by contrast, has never done that. Moreover, FDR has been the target of scathing criticism from day one to the present time, and this is hardly the case in Russia (nor could it be, since the Kremlin has bought or killed every journalist who might write such criticism in mass circulation). And that's to say nothing of the seething contempt Russia shows for all things American -- that is, until Russia wants to justify something bad. Then, suddenly, America is a hallowed model.

But that was yesterday! What is all that amazing garbage compared to today's bulletin, as reported byReuters:

Russia plans to turn the tables on Western critics of its human rights record by setting up an organisation to monitor rights abuses in Europe and the United States, the man behind the project said on Friday. Anatoly Kucherena, a prominent lawyer and presidential appointee to an official council on human rights and civil society, said the organisation would have its headquarters either in Brussels or Germany. 'In recent years there has been a lot of criticism linked to human rights violations in Russia. But believe me, these things happen in other countries too,' Kucherena told reporters. "Imagine if Russia, or Russian human rights activists, were to prepare a corresponding report about, for example, the state of human rights in France? What would happen?" Kucherena has made a name for himself championing ordinary citizens against incompetent or corrupt bureaucrats. He is often shown on state-controlled television -- a sign he has a degree of Kremlin approval. He did not say how the organisation would be funded. "Of course there are problems with human rights in Russia," Kucherena said. "But for me personally, as Anatoly Kucherena, I really do not like it when information contained in these reports (by Western organisations on rights in Russia) ... has some kind of ideological subtext. To be honest, it is unpleasant when our country is ranked in 145th place in some index (of human rights) and it is not clear what methodology was used."

Can you imagine what New Yorkers would say if the manager of the New York Yankees, having just suffered a humiliating defeat, announced that his response was to appoint a commission that would investigate and publicize the failings of the Boston Red Sox, and further to explore whether inaccurate umpiring were not the real cause of the disaster? Can you imagine what would happen to the Yankees' fortunes if they were actually managed on that basis? Can you imagine what a judge would say to a murderer who claimed he couldn't be prosecuted because he wasn't the only one who committed murders or because not every murdered had been apprehended?

Note that Mr. Kucherena doesn't indicate he has any reason to believe Russia can do a better job monitoring human rights abuses in the U.S. than, say, Amnesty International, nor does he indicate any genuine concern for saving American human rights victims (that would be hard to believe, given Russian support for terrorist maniacs like those in Venezuela, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas). His reason for taking this action is that data keeps humiliating Russia and he wants to distract people's attention from it. Cut off from anything vaguely like real information about the West (that same West he says he's going to judge) by a Kremlin that has seized control of all Russia's wide-circulation media outlets and propagandized them, he (like most Russians) simply doesn't know how aggressively the West already polices and criticizes itself (take for instance the recent reports that British authorities are investigating a four-year-old child for racism).

Wouldn't it be appropriate, at the very least, to sponsor both an effort to accurately monitor the status of human rights in Russia as well as exposing the alleged failings of other countries? Or perhaps to voice some opposition to the ongoing efforts of the Kremlin to wipe out all such existing efforts?

Not, amazing as it seems, if you are a Russian it wouldn't.

All through the Soviet era we saw exactly this kind of "thinking." Everyone in the world knows Russia has serious problems with human rights, just as the USSR did, but instead of working to remove those problems Russia's response is to create as smokescreen, to claim that other countries have problems so Russia can ignore its own and to claim that data on Russian problems isn't perfect (the next thing you know they'll be inventing their own Nobel prize rather than learning how to do what it takes to win the real ones). The result of such an attitude can only be the absence of reform, the exacerbation of existing problems and the creation of new ones until, just as happened with the USSR, the country collapses.

To put it bluntly, Mr. Kucherena and his ilk are far more dangerous to Russia than any foreign "critic" could hope to be. Yet, he's lionized as a Russian hero while those who struggle for reform, like Anna Politkovskaya and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, are either jailed or killed outright. Which leaves us with a country whose population is dwindling, whose male adult life span is less than 60 years, and whose average wage is less than $5 per hour.

A country on the verge of extinction.

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Comments


Artfldgr says:


From a PRAGMATIC point it makes sense. Who could catch pedophiles easier, naives or predators on the payroll? When they want to catch black hat hackers, don’t they get a person who was caught? Or protecting homes, how often is the person an ex criminal.

Ultimately though, it will serve only one purpose. To exponentially increase the amount of self hate and self directed propaganda.

How can you remove a splinter from your brother’s eye if there is a board in your own?

I guess the amount of disinformation you can get to circulate from the tin-hatters who fancy themselves spy analysts, is to create a false source that one can use to credential ones opinions.

“Wouldn't it be appropriate, at the very least, to sponsor both an effort to accurately monitor the status of human rights in Russia as well as exposing the alleged failings of other countries?”

No of course not, because as so simply laid out, the point is not to diminish abuse, but like a renderer use every piece of those scraps to hurt their enemies.

After all, the west has lost the concept that there can actually be enemies!!! That such things are in the past.

“the next thing you know they'll be inventing their own Nobel prize rather than learning how to do what it takes to win the real ones”.

That’s the cargo culture… the runways are nice.. the control tower is exact… lots of copies that ‘look’ right, but don’t function… they copied what they see on the surface, but deny that there is anything underneath that.

“Which leaves us with a country whose population is dwindling, whose male adult life span is less than 60 years, and whose average wage is less than $5 per hour.”

However they make a lot more than the Chinese factory worker who averages 128 a month, and 12-16 hr days with only 1 day off a month (secularists don’t need holidays and days of observance). They make about a dollar a day if they make a 40 hour week and have weekends off like us. otherwise, if you follow the average time they work, 12 hour days, 1 day off a month, you get 35 cents per hour.

To be fair, if china is doing that, then russia at 5 dollars an hour will languish as china is crushing them too. no matter how you slice it they get less than 5 dollars a day.

Do note that those are the ones who have jobs and work, the rest have less.

[few people noticed during the Nike scandal, that the work descriptions were that the women lived in barracks… they have rooms of their own, but no freedom whatsoever]

As long as china can put people to work like this, and artificially peg their money, Russia will not do well… (and America will eventually wither on the vine. It’s the opposite of product dumping. Its labor dumping, as a regime that owns everything while the people own nothing, can labor dump as to them labor is another disposable resource)


Another Russian says:

"Russia plans to turn the tables on Western critics of its human rights record by setting up an organisation to monitor rights abuses in Europe and the United States"

Well, It's about time that state-murders and state-repressions of demonstrants and dissidents in the US&UK police states are getting investigated by Russian independent researchers.

Every straw to the democratic stack counts, isn't that so, La Truthofobe?

“the next thing you know they'll be inventing their own Nobel prize rather than learning how to do what it takes to win the real ones”.

Unfortunately, you have to be a JEW or lead a "great" AMERICAN "research" team to have even an inkling of a chance for the Shnobel price. Since the major financiers of the Shnobel fund all sit in the US.

"take for instance the recent reports that British authorities are investigating a four-year-old child for racism"

British are suffering from so-called "Stalinesque marazm", they actually plan to to put people in jail for homophobic remarks.
But have you heard the latest, dearie? They are giving a 30 year sentence some dolt in US that stole a doughnut! Stalin smiles from his grave. At least two countries are happily trotting in his footsteps.

"That’s the cargo culture… the runways are nice.. the control tower is exact… lots of copies that ‘look’ right, but don’t function… they copied what they see on the surface, but deny that there is anything underneath that. "

Sounds exactly like the pathetic attempts US engineers had at imitating Russian successes in space for example. Same sized rocket, better electronics, but can't pull up more than a puny 5 kilos of weight. Or can't do better than a SUB-orbital flight. Or can't produce big-sized titanium structures. Or patently unable to land a Shuttle in automatic mode. Half-measures, half-wits.

"After all, the west has lost the concept that there can actually be enemies!!! That such things are in the past. "

Ahh yes, it's not like you attempt to demonise one country after another, just so somebody can descend to pick a fight with you. The corruptioneers at Lockheed and Boeing have to eat, don't they? Or maybe, they need another diamond-studded toilet with a golden pull-string?

"However they make a lot more than the Chinese factory worker who averages 128 a month"

Well, at least you got ONE thing right.

"Do note that those are the ones who have jobs and work, the rest have less. "

Are you talking about all that hopelessly lost white trash that have to put their own weight on a wheelbarrow before they can even get into the car outside, and drive away to the job centre? Or maybe to the medical centre to investigate coronary problems, more like.


puff says:

> Unfortunately, you have to be a JEW
Maybe if you quit being such a hater and considered why the jews are better than russians (work hard, aren't paranoid, gravitate towards useful vs. useless degrees) you might get somewhere. Americans have given up on hating jews because we can out do them.

btw. I just went through my house, and the only item I have that is made in russia is a utility knife. Plenty of chinese stuff, european, south american, and even some african stuff, but only one russian item.

>Sounds exactly like the pathetic attempts >US engineers had at imitating Russian >successes in space for example

Tell me when the first russian walks on the moon.

> Or can't produce big-sized titanium structures

I guess the SR-71 we used to spy on the USSR (and that had hundreds of missiles fired at it to no effect) was built of balsa.

ps. you sold us the titanium ore we made into the blackbird, suckers.

> white trash that have to put their own weight on a wheelbarrow

At least we have the decency to feed our poor.



Harold says:

"Another Russian" wrote the most insane stupid drivel I've read in literally years. It's a totally foaming-at-the-mouth out-of-control rant. It actually started out sounding like a parody but then began sounding as though it COULD be for real. Man oh man! If "Another Russian" isn't locked up somewhere weaving baskets, he should be.


Vova says:

Well, tongue-in-cheekishly, but it makes sense. With the off-the-left-wall Democrats and Mainstream Sewer Media bent on surrendering to islamofascists, which violates my human and civil rights, I don't mind a bit of supervision, even from the Malignant Little Troll's servile bootlicking hacks


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