Vladimir Ryzhkov, Doomsday’s Outrider: I Wanted a NATO Intervention for Christmas

Uncle Volodya says, "Those who beat their swords into plowshares will end up plowing for those who didn't."

Bye-bye, 2011; Happy New Year, everyone! С Новым годом!!

It’s funny, how you can go on reading the same newspaper day after day and, if it’s a foreign paper you mostly read only for the opinion columns, you never notice who the other writers are or what the paper’s political philosophy is. I used to read the Moscow Times every day, but that was during the tenure of the Bush administration. I had taken an interest in foreign politics that year that surpassed by far my interest in what was happening politically in my own country because, as the old saying goes, it’s like sausage; plenty of people are okay with the finished product, but you never want to watch it being made. Anyway, I became a politics junkie on American and Russian issues – the former because the nation had elected a president who offered every appearance of being stone-cold crazy, and the latter because of my Russian wife. The Moscow Times (online edition) became a daily staple, because I enjoyed Chris Floyd’s column, Global Eye, in which he regularly excoriated the Bush administration, and I also browsed it for items of political or military interest on Russia. Suffice it to say that so naive was I, I thought Pavel Felgenhauer actually was an authority on defense matters rather than the western think-tank toady he is. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, all right?

It’s a measure of how long it’s been since I paid any attention to the Moscow Times that I did not notice until today that Chris Floyd was fired in 2006. Apparently his column “no longer fit in with the paper’s plans”. In 2005, the Moscow Times was sold to the Finnish publishing group Sanoma, owned by one of Finland’s richest men, Aatos Erkko (a regular at Bilderberg Group meetings), and members of his family; Sanoma also owns the St. Petersburg Times. At the Moscow Times, former Deputy Editor Andrew McChesney moved up to Editor. I honestly couldn’t say if this marked a change in ideology (although your friend and mine, “Kim Zigfeld” claimed Mr. McChesney as an associate), since I didn’t read most of what was in it.

Well, where was I? Oh, yes; Vladimir Ryzhkov. All that time reading the Moscow Times, and I never heard of Vladimir Ryzhkov. Never took notice of him at all, in fact, until Yalensis pointed out in a comment to the last post that Mr. Ryzhkov would be organizing the next Russian protest march and rally, just as he had organized the last one on December 24th. But he was there all the time, beavering away at the Moscow Times since at least 2002 (as far back as his articles go).

Western journalism long ago abandoned any pretense to objectivity, and it is usually fairly easy to figure out which way a particular source wishes any given issue to go. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for example. Every western source I read at the time of his second conviction damned the Russian judicial system to the blackest depths of hell, to be escorted there personally by Vladimir Putin, for jailing that mild-mannered, incredibly rich prisoner of conscience – why, he wouldn’t hurt a fly, anyone can see that; just look at his little rimless glasses!! He looks like John Denver with a buzz cut!! Plainly, western sources thought Mikhail Khodorkovsky was cute as a button, more or less completely innocent, and only jailed because he represented a political threat to Vladimir the Black-Hearted. Incidentally, a theory to which Mr. Ryzhkov subscribes.

The Pumpkin Sherbet Revolution: Stop Worrying About The Economy – You’re FREE!!!!

Uncle Volodya says, "Hate is able to provoke disorders, to ruin a social organization, to cast a country into a period of bloody revolutions; but it produces nothing."

In order to best understand the underpinnings of the gestating “Snow Revolution” (sometimes called the “White Revolution”), we’re going to have to retrace our steps a little.

Like most societies that regularly draw on their past for inspiration, western societies are fond of parables. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” used to be a favourite, although its meaning has been largely lost in the brave new generation of empire and being “history’s actors” rather than simply studying what happened after the fact. It inspires simple nostalgia for the dual personalities in Charles Kingsley’s “The Water Babies”, a book I loved as a child; Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby was kind and gentle, coaxing the stubborn to mend their ways while time to do so remained, but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid was the grim avenger whose appearance heralded yet another fool stepping across the line that can never be recrossed. Atonement would not be far behind.

The English, too, are fond of such distilled life lessons – “a stitch in time saves nine”, and “procrastination is the thief of time” suggest that a timely effort now will save much more difficult work later.

Within this list, an emerging favourite should take its rightful place: “There’s always money for regime change”.

Yawn. Duma Elections and the Predictability of Western Outrage

Uncle Volodya says, "Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises - for, never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing."

The recently-concluded Duma elections in Russia have western media outlets in such a tizzy of self-fulfilling prophecy that you would think the opposition had actually won. In fact, although United Russia’s share of the vote slipped a little, it still (as usual) polled more than double the result of its next closest competitor, the Communists. It’s also worth remembering that United Russia still garnered better than 10% higher support than the 37.6% it gained in its first appearance, in 2003. Still, as I mentioned, western sources – almost dribbling in their excitement – now see fit to differentiate between the “Soviet Communist Party” and the New Communists, signalling their willingness to see Genady Zyuganov and the KPRF running the country if only he will defeat Putin. How very far, and by what strange pathways has America come since the xenophobic Joe McCarthy thundered, “Any man who has been given the honor of being promoted to General, and who says, ‘I will protect another general who protects Communists,’ is not fit to wear that uniform, General.” Back then, Communists were unambiguously the enemy; now, they’re the Russophobe’s best hope. Indeed, politics makes strange bedfellows.

Exemplary of what has become her signature spit-in-Russia’s-face style, Julia Ioffe spoke disparagingly - before the vote - about “a lot of people talking about going out to vote just to vote for somebody, even if the vote is falsified in the end just as a way to exercise their right and to at least participate”, as if it were a sad and wasted effort by a few despondent people who went out to just blindly push a ballot in a box so they could pretend they were voting in a real democracy. In reality, the Duma election voter turnout was better than 60%. To put that in perspective, in the last 3 U.S. midterm elections only two states (Minnesota and South Dakota) have ever broken 60% turnout, and the national average has not broken 40% since 1970. Voter turnout in Russia blows the doors off that in the USA and the United Kingdom, where it is sometimes embarrassingly in the 20′s.

Hit the Road, Jack; the L.A. Times Knows You Ain’t Comin’ Back No More

Uncle Volodya says, "Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you're a mile away, and you have their shoes."

When I was a kid, hardly a day went by when you didn’t get called a “retard” by someone, usually another kid. The slightest mistake was enough to get you branded a retard for a day or two; growing up was tough then, and it’s tough now. But the term “retard” was common then, and its use is anathema now (although the terms “conservatard” and “libtard” are still frequently bandied back and forth in political arguments on American media sites, presumably to convey the degree of stupidity vested in those who oppose the other’s ideology). I suppose we didn’t mean any harm; we didn’t know any better, and believed retards were regular people who, through some accident of birth or generations of inbreeding, were slower than everyone else. I know now those people were born that way and couldn’t help it; I also know a lot of the people who came under the retard umbrella were simply stupid, and most certainly could help it.

Exempting, then, those poor souls who are victims of God’s disfavour from birth, let’s imagine an intense concentration of retards who are retards simply because they choose to be stupid. There have been lots of sci-fi/horror  films about small towns affected by something in the water supply or some other localized mutating factor; let’s imagine something like that has resulted in stubborn, intellect-sucking obtuseness. Let’s further imagine that, rather than all living in the same town, they all work at the same newspaper.

Adventures In Two Worlds: Vladislav Inozemtsev Phases In And Out of Reality

Uncle Volodya says, "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."

I’ve been thinking back over my lifetime quite a bit lately. Not that flash-before-your-eyes thing that’s supposed to happen when your death is iminent; more like a thoughtful, deliberate inventory. I can’t honestly recall doing anything really, really bad. Well, there was that time in junior high when I stole some ice-cream-on-a-stick treat from the grocery near my school by shoving it down the front of my pants. The clerk at the checkout knew I had it, too, but I grew up in a small town where every adult knew your mother, and those were different times. Rather than embarrass me with confrontation, she simply engaged me in small-talk about my family until it had melted down my legs inside my jeans. It worked, too. I never stole anything frozen again, and I never forgot the lesson.

Well, where was I? Oh, yes. I can’t recall doing anything really bad, but it seems I’m being punished for something disgraceful. I’ve said on numerous occasions how thoroughly I despise economics – but every member of the Russian liberal intelligentsia the west trots out these days to support its theory that Putin will crush Russia in his kung-fu iron grip, or to lecture Russia on the path it must take… turns out to be an economist.

The latest in the conga-line of straitjacket mannequins is Vladislav Inozemtsev, author of a somewhat scolding diatribe for the Washington Post, entitled, “Keeping Russia From Turning Back” (thanks, sinotibetan).

Hey, remember the character of “Reverend Jim” Ignatowski on the TV Sitcom “Taxi” (1978-1983)? Jim was pretty burnt out from systemic drug abuse (you could make fun of people for things like that on TV back then), but every once in awhile he would experience an epiphany when his brain and current events came briefly into alignment. When asked to explain this phenomenon, he replied somewhat dazedly, “I tend to phase in and out of reality”.

Achtung!! Ve Have Vays Off Making You Not To Talk!

ZIGFELLLLLLLDDDD!!!

Customarily, I am not a fan of the play-by-play “Twitter” style post (I’m going into the coffee shop now…whoops! I spilled my goat’s-milk latte). But I just had to share this comedic moment with you – I have been banned from commenting at La Russophobe’s latest full-on crazy manifesto, Dying Russia.

Well, that didn’t take long. Four days, to be exact. A bit less than half the time I lasted at the original blog, La Russophobe. But that’s not the funny part. So eager was Krazy Kap’n Kimmie to get rid of me as a commenter, she banned me for use of profanity, because I said “Amnesty International simply pulled those numbers out of their ass”. No, I’m not kidding; see for yourself.

That’s right; “comment deleted for violation of posted comment publication guidelines regarding profanity”. So in the same thread that I am referred to as “psychotic and evil”, “the stupidest and most dishonest person on the planet”, a “putinophilic moron” (that’s the very Bohdan who gave The Kremlin Stooge its name), and an “inbred ape”, the ears of the readers must be protected from the word, “ass”.

You probably think that’s the funny part. No, it’s not. Or maybe the funny part is that there are no posted comment publication guidelines. Nope. The funny part is the content of the comment that was deleted. Beside the use of the word “ass” in describing where Amnesty International got its figures, it was a reply to the suggestion that I am the stupidest and most dishonest person on the planet. It read, in part “Have it your way. But wasn’t it you who wept about “the WOEFUL under-reporting of violence against women in Russia”…just 18 days after you personally advocated for the gang-raping of one of your fellow countrywomen? I couldn’t help noticing your standards regarding violence against women are a little pliable.”

Sho ’nuff. “If you saw the movie “Boys Don’t Cry,” you saw Hilary Swank portray a character being brutally gang raped. Until recently, we would never have suggested than any woman deserves such a fate. But now we can’t help but think that maybe Swank herself actually does.”

Oh, later on she says Swank should be murdered, after referring to her as a “cheap slut” and a “nasty little American bitch”. Note, though, friends and neighbours, that she never stoops to using the vulgarity, “ass”.

I thought the whole episode was pretty funny, and Anatoly and I did get a few good licks in. I particularly enjoyed the self-righteous post that wants you to know the word combination “Dying Russia” registers over 28 million google hits. When I pointed out that the same search technique yields 10 times that number of hits for the combination “American Fool”, I got this reply; “Better foolish than dead, you hopeless inbred ignoramus.”

Most of you are probably too young to remember the sixties Nazi prison-camp sitcom, “Hogan’s Heroes”. Incidentally, in one of those funny twists you sometimes run across, all the actors who played the senior German officers were actually Jewish. Anyway, that’s what the groupthink over at “Dying Russia” reminds me of; they’re like Nazis, but really stupid, bumbling Nazis who are constantly being outwitted, but are too slow to realize it.

So now, I guess I’ll have to go back to mocking her here instead of there. Auf Wiedersehen, Phobie; it was fun while it lasted.

You Can’t Fire Me – I Quit: The Canonizing of Alexei Kudrin

Uncle Volodya says, "They say the only sure things in life are death and taxes. Kudrin wants me to increase one of them."

Never attribute to malice, we’re told, that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Nobody seems to be sure exactly who said it first, and although most commonly linked to a Robert A. Hanlon, many believe it originated with controversial and influential American science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein. Whatever you believe, you’ll probably go through life with fewer stress-related health problems if you simply assume that people who are wrong are just stupid, and that they meant well.

Pretty much defining that genre is Dmitry Travin’s apocalyptic “Kudrin’s Warning“, for Open Democracy.  The one tickle of uncertainty is that Travin is a modernizer and reformer, anointed for his commitment to making Russia more like a liberal western democracy with broad private ownership of resources and infrastructure. So maybe he writes as he does out of malice. All I can say is, it certainly reads like stupidity. Well, let’s go through it together – see what you think.

What I think is that this is the beginning of the canonization of Kudrin. Never ones to pass up an opportunity to point at Russia and shout, “My God!! Can you believe how stupid that was??” the western media seems poised to once again shape the narrative. Take a memo, world – Alexei Kudrin was not only the most brilliant economist and financial wizard Russia has ever had, his forced resignation due to the shortsighted ideology of his political masters – thrice ungrateful considering Kudrin was the architect of Russia’s present prosperity – will surely result in disaster. Russia, in short, is playing Russian Roulette with its future.

We’re treated early to an example of Travin’s wit (speaking of Russian Roulette) in his description of the legendary exercise. It springs, according to Travin, from Russian romantic legend of Tsarist times. If so, it springs from a romantic legend that is heavy on romance and light on basic knowledge of firearms. Again according to Travin, one “twirls the barrel round several times, and puts the gun to one’s head”. Presumably, this will confuse the bullet, or it might if you could twirl the barrel on a revolver, but in fact you spin the cylinder so that the hammer does not fall on the chamber in which you just loaded the bullet, which comes out the barrel. The barrel is fixed in place, and does not twirl or rotate, or anything that could be so described. You could, theoretically, “twirl” the entire revolver if you inserted your finger in the trigger guard – but it would be difficult to imagine how that might introduce an element of chance into shooting yourself.

Gas Princess Tymoshenko Goes Down In Flames: Amnesty International Channels Fox News

Uncle Volodya says, "Cheer up, Yulya: in prison, you get time off for good behavior. If you had to work for a living, you'd get rewarded for good behavior with more work"

In a verdict that, for all it was not entirely unexpected, appears to have surprised the world, the Pechersky District Court in Kiev found Yulia Tymoshenko guilty of abusing her office as Prime Minister of Ukraine. The charge related to a circumstance in 2009, in which she allegedly ordered the head of the state-run gas company NAFTOGAZ to sign a deal with Russia although the Verkhovna Rada had withheld its support for the deal. She has never denied ordering fomer NAFTOGAZ Ukraine head Oleg Dubyna to sign the agreement, saying that she did what had to be done. The record, however, reflects that she petitioned the cabinet of Verkhovna Rada – Ukraine’s parliament and supreme body of state power – when Dubyna refused to sign the contracts without state approval. The record further reflects that the cabinet not only denied its support, it took the issue off the table. Tymoshenko is then alleged to have ordered Dubyna to sign the contracts, which he did, and the verdict reflects the court’s confidence that it was done at Tymoshenko’s direction. She was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment and a fine for damages of her action totaling $180 million.

Western response was swift and condemnatory. “Ukraine is sliding toward Russian-style…autocratic rule” opines The Guardian. “Politically motivated prosecution” accuses the White House, exercising its new recycling policy by scratching out “Khodorkovsky” on its press releases and scribbling in “Tymoshenko”; ” [the] charges against Mrs. Tymoshenko…have raised concerns about…Ukraine’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law.” The European Union is “deeply disappointed“, sputters Foreign Affairs representative Catherine Ashton; “..the approach of Ukrainian authorities…risks having profound implications for the EU-Ukraine bilateral relationship.” Cementing its pitiable and permanent downgrade to Global Assclown, Amnesty International calls for Tymoshenko’s immediate release, quavering that the charges on which she has been convicted “are not internationally recognized offenses”. So, as long as you can find a country where it’s not a crime, it’s not a crime anywhere? Good to know. Darya, get the hell off the phone and order me some child prostitutes from Thailand. Oh, hey, and a sack of weed from Amsterdam. I know it’s bad for self-esteem to play favourites, but I have to say Amnesty International’s response bent the needle on my personal laugh-o-meter.

Managed Democracy in Russia: Unmasking the Magic

Uncle Volodya says, "Know the difference between a misfortune and a calamity? Well, if Kasyanov fell into the Neva, that'd be a misfortune. If somebody pulled him out....that'd be a calamity""

Did you follow the events in Libya via the international media, through the imposition of the no-fly zone right to the messy conclusion? How about the frequent reports of Assad’s thugs mowing down protesters in Syria; a deliberate provocation to get NATO involved in another revolution there? A commenter on Anatoly’s blog who appeared quite knowledgeable on the subject suggested the latter intervention was a non-starter based on the relative superiority of Syrian air defence, as compared with that of Ghaddafi. I’m not sure how that will be affected as fighter aircraft edge closer and closer to unmanned vehicles – but that’s a subject for another day.

Something the two situations have in common are the use of a desired end-state (removal of the leader) as a starting point, and shoring up of the subsequent process with a blitz of media bulletins – nearly all of which relied on sources who had a direct interest in the outcome. Time after time, media reported anti-Ghaddafi forces initiating another assault in terms that expressed no doubt they would take the objective, and time and again they were hurled back until NATO bombing ahead of the advancing rebels began to turn the tide. Whenever the Ghaddafi administration offered journalists tours of Tripoli, the resulting reports complained that they “only saw what Ghaddafi wanted them to see”, and managed conveniently to overlook a pro-Ghaddafi demonstration that drew more than a million supporters. Simply put, everything Ghaddafi told reporters was a lie, while everything the rebels said was the unvarnished truth. Similarly, every report I’ve seen that details Assad’s vicious suppression of dissent is followed by, “according to activists”.

Since this blog deals mostly with Russian issues, of course there’s a Russian connection. The criminally awful coverage of Russian politics, immigration, economics and policy results almost exclusively from people who are not Russian and do not live in Russia as a part of Russian society, but have a special interest in pushing a narrative and repeating it until it assumes the appearance of truth. Kathy Lally. Ed Lucas. Leon Aron. Anne Applebaum, as well as many others you know well, all respected in the west as scholars, academics, experts….and all painters of journalistic masterpieces on Russia rendered in subtle variations of purest horseshit.

I can offer you something different. An insider’s unbiased view of the cut and thrust of Russian politics, the effect of domestic and foreign policy on the nation’s people and a candid appraisal of current events in Russia from a Russian viewpoint. I’m not talking about myself, of course – I don’t live in Russia, and have never lived there as a resident. I’m talking about kovane, whom I managed to drag out of semiretirement with the threat of a pay cut. Without further ado…..

Managed Democracy in Russia: Unmasking the Magic

The question if there is democracy in Russia long ago turned into something akin to the question if there is life on Mars. Some people are positive that there is, others are dead set that there isn’t, but the majority doesn’t care that much. Quite characteristically, as opposed to the riddle about Mars, both groups are right in a sense. The former are just looking at the standard definition of democracy – do citizens elect representatives? Check. Is there evidence of mass-falsifying these elections? No, the results largely match polls conducted by a plethora of organisations, both independent and state-owned. Well, democracy it is. The latter camp, on the other hand, try to compare Russia with a spherical model of democracy in a vacuum, where branches of power are completely independent, freedom of speech is not influenced by corporate interests and the influence of separate power brokers on the political process is  negligible.

So, who is closer to the truth? While there is hardly a country that matches the Procrustean bed of preconditions proposed by the purists, one thing is undeniable – there are so many hidden terms in the equation of the political process that it places Russia very far from the said ideal. Much farther than a whole number of countries, it’s safe to say. In fact, as we will see below, the Kremlin holds so much sway over the political process that it would take a significant amount of dissent to push the situation out of control. And provided how nimble the Kremlin has been in the handling of it – mostly with reasonable concessions, but not shying away from using force if necessary – it would be a very unlikely scenario.

Rolling in on the Wheels of Inevitability – It’s Good to be King

Uncle Volodya says, "The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

It’s good to be king, if just for a while
To be there in velvet, yeah, to give ‘em a smile
It’s good to get high, and never come down
It’s good to be king of your own little town

Tom Petty, from “It’s Good To Be King”; from the album Wildflowers

The internet is abuzz; the press rushes to warn of disaster soon to come – bloggers and journalists alike shout it from every rooftop. Vladimir Putin will stand once more for election to his nation’s highest office!! Everyone has an opinion, from poets to schoolteachers, from dreamers to cynics and from the hovels of the humble to the mansions of the mighty. The vast majority of English-speaking analysis adjudges this decision a calamity for Russia that will make Stalin’s purges look like mud-wrestling for octogenarians. Can pestilence and plagues of boils be far behind? Apparently not.

Joining the Massed Prophets Of Doom (thanks to Foppe for the link), is Yevgeny Yasin, Russian economist and former Minister of the Economy from 1994 to 1997. Economic changes will entail political risks and unpopular decisions that will stop Putin, says Yasin. The guy hasn’t even been elected yet, and already he’s a failure as a leader. Boy; tough crowd.

Yevgeny Yasin…..why does that name sound so familiar? Oh, yeah – I remember. Together with fellow numpty triplets Vladimir Mau and Yevsei Gurvich, he helped round out what I described as the Triad Of Tools, back in March of this year. On that occasion we discovered that Yasin, like his fellow numpties, appeared to be roughly as accomplished at economics as he is at extreme skateboarding. Well, perhaps that isn’t entirely fair – he’s hopeless at economic forecasting, although his economic education is enviable. But still, I ask you: what good is an economist who is reliably wrong in predictions of future economic trends? Anyone can predict economic events that have already happened – Jeeze, I could do that, and I stayed out of retail because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to make correct change. More to the point, why should anyone believe your economy-related predictions when you’re less accurate than flipping a coin?