Talented Russians

Song for Australia Day

Hayek versus Brezhnev

The libertarians picked up on a recent speech by Rudd, in which he had the temerity to question one of the foremost 'philosophers' of liberalism:

We simply don’t have to choose between Hayek and (former Soviet president Leonid) Brezhnev,” Mr Rudd said.

Of course, the Russians had a poll last year to assess which leader (of the past century) was the best, and which was the preferred era in which to live. The Hayekians might have hypothesised that free market, anti-communist, fire salesman Yeltsin would have got over the line. On the contrary, he was overwhelmingly trounced in popularity by Brezhnev (preferred by 31% as opposed to Yelstin's 1%). Hell, even Stalin got 6%.

As revisionist as communism

Bolt has plumbed new depths of ignorance today with an attempt to draw parallels between the Federal ALP's new 'alcopop' tax, and Soviet Russia. Apparently, since the tax was introduced, there has been a 'surge' in thefts of the alcopops, leading Bolt to deduce that the ALP policy 'not only fails to stop the boozers, but drives some into thievery.'

Clearly, there are many reasons to be sceptical about a tax curbing a purported binge-drinking epidemic. That aside, however, Bolt has done a remarkable volte-face here for a vulgar Tory, and has gone so far as to attribute criminal behaviour to social conditions. Gone is the moralising rhetoric of 'responsibility', favoured by Bolt and other hacks and shock jocks. Apparently, social conditions and government policy are to blame for crime when this is ideologically convenient.

Let's see how long it takes for Bolt to back-pedal from this position in a future post. I cannot recall Bolt ever displaying such 'understanding' when it comes to the property crimes of Aboriginals, for instance. When drug users feel compelled to steal to support their habit, does anybody seriously expect the likes of Bolt to attribute this to the government policies that keep such drugs illegal (and expensive)?

Finally, in a kind of inverse-Godwin piece of stupidity, Bolt invokes the spectre of Soviet Russia to dramatise his hypocritical observations. This might have been well and good if it didn't directly undermine Bolt's point, and betray his profound ignorance of some basic facts.

Since the fall of communism (1991), consumption of alcohol by Russian men has tripled, making Russians the highest drinkers of spirits in the world. Since Putin was in power, and capitalism was embraced, the rising cost of vodka in Russia has led some impoverished citizens to resort to cleaning fluids, and other dangerous alcoholic material. Since the Iron Curtain was lifted, alcoholism is the primary reason why the life-expectancy for the average Russian male has dropped to just 58 years.

The lesson of all this is to get your lackeys to acquaint you with some basic logical and historical facts before launching into overblown, melodramatic comparisons.

Imbecile Watch

Oh dear.

Those of you who thought the Cold War was over may not have noticed that some of the footsoldiers are still down in the bunkers, fighting for liberty, justice, and hotdogs.

To that end, I give you idiot of the week, 'La Russophobe'.

There are plenty of reasons why we might be concerned about contemporary Russia, not the least of which is the conduct of the recently re-elected authoritarian, 'oligarchic' Government. There is also the rise of the radical right, and concomitant bigotry directed towards blacks, Jews, gays, and Asians. There is the oppression of Chechnya, and there is also significant poverty.

Any of these things, along with several others, no doubt, would be pretty good grist for the mill for a Russia-watching blogger, with an eye on Putin and politics.

Sadly, La Russophobe goes further. She divides the world into 'Russophobes' (those, like herself, who oppose the Rooskies) and 'Russophiles' (everybody else, particularly Russians themselves). This black-and-whitism should give you a bit of a sense of the sort of George W style of 'logic' this blog contains.

The author explains the raison d'etre of her charming blog:

Don't forget: The main reason La Russophobe hates Russians is because they
are destroying themselves, in particular their innocent children...If Russians
want to shut La Russophobe up, all they have to do is stop failing.

Here the author uses the old Lovejoy rationale - Won't somebody think of the children!
Russia isn't the only country with a few problems at the moment. In fact, given the many conflicts occurring around the world at present, I doubt Russia is the first nation that comes to mind when it comes to people 'failing' their 'innocent children'. I mean, the US, for instance, has over two million people in prison, and this would seem to be a pretty harsh indictment of the ills of its society. But no, our anti-Tartar friend only 'hates' the Rooskies.

She also attempts to debunk several supposed myths about Russia, such as the following:

MYTH: Boris Yeltsin was loved by the ignorant West but hated by
Russians.

REALITY: When Yeltsin told Russians to vote for Putin, they did so
without hesitation.

Actually, Yeltsin was more beloved of the West than the Russians themselves, and is possibly the only person in human history too drunk to get into Ireland. After his corruption and incompetence, Putin's accession is almost understandable.

MYTH: Russia tried capitalism and it failed.

REALITY: Russia has never
been governed by anyone other than a king or a person raised under Communism. It
has certainly never been governed by a capitalist.

I think we need to ask some questions here of our authors' take on 'reality'. Last I heard, Putin and his cronies weren't exactly Marxists, and still less are they hippie commune types.

MYTH: Russia is the land of great literature and science.

REALITY: America,
famous as a land of hillbilly morons, has far more Nobel prizes for science and
literature than Russia.

Actually, both countries have their share of backwoods types. In any case, it's a rare treat to read a blogger with such fine taste in the arts. It's about time those hacks like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were put in their place, so we can catch another episode of Girls of the Playboy Mansion.

MYTH: Russians are brave, and have shown it struggling against winter
and invaders.

REALITY: Russians are extraordinary cowards, and have shown it in
consistently refusing to oppose their own government. Russians fought foreign
invaders because the were more afraid of their own government than those
invaders, and because of their latent hatred of foreigners. Russians live with
the climate because they have no choice.

Venturing into the land of the truly unhinged, the author now seems to be forgetting those extraordinary cowards like Lenin and the Bolsheviks who, rightly or wrongly, stood up to Tzarist rule, or the millions who perished in WWII.

We shouldn't be surprised that, despite being a good candidate for an emergency psychiatric admission, this blogger is quoted with much approval on the right-wing blogosphere.

It's been a while since we've had such a stellar nominee for Idiot of the Week, and in the case of La Russophobe, the moniker is thoroughly deserved. Come on down and accept your padded cell!

Don't you hate it when...

At a time when the radical right of Russia are beating people senseless for the heinous crimes of being homosexual, Jewish, or 'foreign', that the country, and its leader, Vladimir Putin, are accused of being 'leftist'?

The 2007 election result must have addled a few brains. I'm just waiting on confirmation that Bill O'Reilly is a communist.

Another Discovery...

My Russian is ni ochi horosho, but I think he's saying - 'Hurrah for Soviet Kitsch, comrades!'

Nobody does Tabloids like the Russians...

Moth to the flame that I am, every once in a while I cannot resist browsing through the English version of Pravda, former state propaganda organ-turned-trashy tabloid. Perhaps such things serve as a restorative after the depressing task of sifting through the Australian Government's own propaganda organ. Anyway, here is a Sunday night sampler:

Thousands forced into sex slavery to satisfy perverted fantasies of the rich
An organized criminal group specialized in human trafficking has been arrested in the city of Taganrog, Southern Russia, by a regional directorate for combating organized crime. The group comprised 2 men and a woman. Alexander Sviridov, 30, was the group’s leader. The man previously served a prison term for larceny. Svetlana Prokhorova, the 42-year-old mother of four, was Svidorov’s right hand and sidekick. Not unlike her boss, woman is no stranger to breaking the law either.

Love that translation - you can almost hear the authorial accent coming through: 'woman is no stranger to breaking the law either'.

Women going on sex tours look for big bamboos and Marlboro men
While men choose Asia for their sex tourism, women go to Southern Europe (Italy, Greece, Turkey, Croatia and Spain), to the Caribbean Basin (Jamaica, Barbados and the Dominican Republic), Genoa and Kenya in Africa, Bali, Indonesia and Phuket in Thailand to enjoy sex tourism. Nepal, Morocco, Fiji, Ecuador and Costa-Rica are less popular. Thailand, the Dominican Republic and Cuba are the countries that suit for sex tourism of both sexes, male and female.

Some rich men can pay up to 500 dollars for sex with disfigured prostitutes
Sex with scary prostitutes is becoming a popular pastime for Japanese men. There are a number of brothels staffed with inmates whose faces and heads were badly marred by burns, bruises or congenital malformations like hydrocephalus (accumulation of serous fluid in the cranium, often leading to great enlargement of the head). “I’ve learned to see my disadvantages as advantages,” reads one of the messages posted by the 22-year-old Mimiko on a web forum frequented by local prostitutes. Mimiko was born with cleft palate or a fissure at the roof of the mouth due to failure of the two sides to fuse in embryonic development. “In the past, I couldn’t even imagine having any sort of full-blown sex life. Nowadays men wait in line to get my favors. More importantly, I’ve already saved up enough money to pay for surgery!” Mimiko writes in her message.
Males offer their own reasons to explain a penchant for such a quirky kind of sensual pleasure.
“I’m just fed up with those shapely ladies. They have sex with you as if they’re doing some kind of job. On the contrary, girls who have been out of luck in terms of sex can attend each customer in the best way possible, they never fake it, they make love with total candor and passion,” said Andrei. A diversity of cultural and ethnical characteristics adds color to the Russian market of weird sex. For instance, some women from southern republics of the former Soviet Union are in demand. Their sex appeal has nothing to do their attractive curves or impulsive temperament. Those women look somewhat hairy; they have excess bodily hair – a condition caused by increased levels of male sex hormones in the female body.

Always making fun of the Uzbeks. And their 'inmates'.

I won't even bother with the 'photo-journalism' piece about the soccer lines-woman's nude photo-shoot (in the 'sport' section), the graphic piece on anorexics, several articles on Chavez, or the lake monster terrorising villagers in the Ukraine.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Distracted from class warfare, and instead waging the war against sleep, the Very Busy and Rather Tired Revolutionary has been occupied recently with gainful employment, scholarly pursuits, and attending to an ailing Ms Revolutionary.

In lieu of a substantive post, here are some snippets from the wonderful world of the Internet:

The Good

I was going to post on this delightful picture, taken from the latest Liberal Party love-in:

but Ms Fits beat me to it. Still, captions are welcome.

Omni Brain has an intriguing clip from You Tube, morphing the face of Woman from 500 years worth of paintings. Should be of interest to art fans, and also, possibly, to the psychologically inclined. Gaze and beauty and all that.

Still on the topic of women, a rather amusing study has been conducted, courtesy of the, err, soft sciences.

The Bad

The News Ltd media are still assuring us that, if Labor wins the next election, then the unions are coming to eat your babies.

Evolutionary science tells us that, between the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man came the rightard. Those rightards who have adapted to the 21st Century and mastered the use of opposable digits seem to think that arming 11-year olds will help reduce crime. God bless. I'm sure they'd feel the same way about armed and 'educated' children in Africa and the Middle East.

The Ugly

The Russians, or at least their authoritarian leaders, are making mischief once again, this time, in response to purported US mischief. This has been highly publicised in the Australian media of late, with a surprisingly measured and non-hysterical response, for now, at least. The same cannot necessarily be said of our Northern friends. The backdrop to this latest missile crisis is, in short, characterised by Russian tension with the former Eastern Bloc countries, flagging negotiations between Russia and the EU/Germany, and attempts by Britain to extradite and prosecute a suspected murderer. We shall see what happens.

In the US, pornographer Larry Flynt is offering $1 million to anyone who can provide substantiated evidence of a sex-scandal involving high-ranking politicians. Let's hope a similarly community-minded scheme is introduced here - the likes of Pru Goward can 'clear the air', and we might finally be able to rid ourselves of an unflushable turd of a PM.

Finally, even a stopped clock can be right twice a day. It seems that The Australian is finally having a moment of (accidental) substance in one of its op-eds/blogs. Gary Hughes has invited discussion on the topic of a number of serial killings from Perth a few years back. If you have the time, follow the links; the discussion is frankly, at times, disturbing. Everything from Freemason plots, psychics, and alien abduction have been mentioned in connection with these killings, and a number of amateur sleuths have popped up offering theories. Some of these characters seem to have take a rather unhealthy interest in the matter. Still, it makes me wonder if there are any similar vigilantes/detectives in the People's Republic of Melbourne who are trying to solve cold cases.

From Australia, with Love

I saw a fairly bizarre article in the English version of the infamous Russian tabloid, Pravda, the other day. The article, possibly subject to a dubious translation, was written as an anonymous opinion piece entitled 'Why we escaped from Australia'.

As the author explains:

We have escaped recently from Australia because of Secret Police harassment
that has been going on for many years. For people overseas that think that the
Western countries have freedom and democracy, I have bad news: it's only
propaganda and lies.

The author is a bit sketchy on the details of the said harassment, but asserts that his wife is related to a high-profile public figure in Australia, who is himself part of the 'Secret Service' and a government 'fixer'. The author suggests that this was the reason that he and his wife came to ASIO attention:

We were followed and people were clicking their phones in our faces. People
following us also use and have used psychological tactics and disguises both
here and overseas. By the type of PSY Operations used we realized that spooks
had personal information about my wife which could only have been gained by
spies or their agents working over a long period.

The author adds that he tried to seek help through the official media, but eventually gave up:

One of the reasons that pushed us to leave Australia is that despite the
facade of democracy and openness there was no body or Institution that was
interested in hearing our story or offering help. The print media and
broadcasters are simply not interested because 2 or 3 media barons control every
print media outlet and broadcaster and those people work hand in hand with the
Government.

The author is certainly correct as regards this latter statement, as this story does not appear to have entered Australia's mainstream media. On the other hand, an anonymous report making unsubstantiated allegations about ASIO is hardly likely to make it into the press.

So what can we make of this story? I will bypass the irony of the Russian media publishing a piece asserting that Australian authorities are controlling and undemocratic.

On the other hand, significant control has been ceded to 'Secret Service' people, with sedition laws and anti-terrorism legislation generally. Frankly, I am not sufficiently informed to be aware of what ASIO gets up to, and I have not heard any stories of them pursuing Russians for obscure familial connections. On the other hand, I have heard that some Chinese are definitely targeted, but not necessarily the 'average guy' in Box Hill or Cabramatta. Plenty of relatively innocuous Australians must also have been targeted at some point; I recall an article in the Weekend Australian a while ago in which Radio National broadcaster, Murdoch columnist and former communist Philip Adams claimed, with some evidence, that ASIO had a file on him for years.

Then again, the claims made by this Russian author are probably to vague to allow us to form a definitive opinion. Reading through Pravda, it seems that there is often an anti-Western subtext running throughout, with particular emphasis on anti-Bush sentiment, to a level that makes The Age, or even Le Monde, appear like an American-apologist propaganda organ.

Still, I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this. Are ASIO abusing their powers at the behest of the Government? We Australians certainly seem to know much less about the wheelings and dealings of our secret service than say, the Americans know about the CIA. Accountability and secrecy do not exactly go hand in hand.