A Chill Wind over Russia
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch failed “to keep their papers in order” and are forced to stop all activities in the Russian Federation. Watchdog journalists murdered. Political critics sent to psychiatric institutions. Human rights groups shut down. Gosh….could there be a trend?
(Before Lew Rockwell and Justin Raimondo write more essays defending the Russian government for shutting down the opposition, taking over the media, and so forth, and trot forth the argument that it’s just a simple form and it’s their own fault for not fulfilling the requirements, it should be noted that various groups that “waited until the last minute to file” reported that earlier filings had been rejected, ever new forms produced, various kinds of impossible proofs demanded, and on and on. [Reuters, CNN] It’s a classic case of using bureaucracy to shut down groups that are not to the government’s liking.)
Did you hear Secretary Rice invited some dissident press writers to visit her this week at her hotel while she was staying in Russia? I wonder what influence that will have. Even if none, she deserves praise for that decision.
Does anyone have a good link to a summary of recent totalitarian developments in Russia? I’m up to speed on such in the US and UK, but not really elsewhere.
As to Raimondo, he’s probably just gone around the bend after excessive amounts of despairing over evils committed by USA, I don’t think the evidence is there that he actively wants anti-American dictatorships to prosper.
btw, in view of the fact that the “petard” expression was explained on this site, what does “Drops Another Shoe” refer to? My grasp of English idioms is adequate, but that one has always bothered me, and looking it up would be cheating. 🙂
“Evils” committed by the U.S.? What are you, some kind of anti-American Rockwellian white supremacist?
Well, fbuddy has it right that Rockwellians are white supremacists, as well as fans of Putin. I think that “drops another shoe” refers to people in an apartment upstairs who get ready for bed, take off one shoe and drop it, and then the people in the apartment below are left waiting for the other shoe to drop. So the usual expression is “waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/7/messages/852.html
Dan: I guess you’re against U.S. laws that forbid foreign governments from funding NGOs in the U.S. That’s the third shoe that dropped some time ago. And I guess you didn’t get the irony in my comment on Rockwell and his supposed “supremacism,” and yet it seems that the commenters to this blog are all American supremacists: the U.S. government can do no wrong. Especially when they target someone for Regime Change.
I knew Raimondo decades ago, Random. I can assure he was around the bend long ago.
fbuddy or should I say Raimondo as Palmer pointed out, why are you such a big hyprocrite by saying America is a “Fascist” state but wouldn’t mind sticking up to Putin who is an ever growing tyrant?
And as for Palmer being an “American Surpremacist” he has been quite critical of the handling of the Iraq War. But then to somebody like you, it’s okay to support Putin’s war in Chechnya even while there are number of death squads roaming around and even some of Putin’s own cronies are allegely funding these Chechan Islamists, but to someone like you, who cares? America is the “Great Satan”, right?
I would also like to see where’s fbuddy or should I say Raimondo’s condemnation of Russia and China getting rich off Sudanese oil while many Christian Sudanese are being massacred daily by militias controlled by the Islamist government or how China plays both ends of the stick by also supporting the rebels?
M,
So, you are making fun of those radicals, who claim the U.S. being “Great Satan”, but you find nothing wrong in seeing Russia and China as a couple of “Great Satans”, right?
So “R2D2” do you think it’s okay that someone like Raimondo defends someone as vile as Putin when it involves the death of a Putin critic? And as for refering Russia and China to being the “Great Satans” I never said that, you did.
I am simply pointing out what they are doing in the world. But if you want to make excuses for someone like you or Raimondo or “fbuddy” or whatever strange screen name he appears to be, but constantly attacks America to be “fascist” when these two nations are not-such-free nations along with doing partnerships with a list of nefarious leaderships of other various nations such as Burma receiving arms from Russia and allowing China take its resources?
How about Russia and China defending North Korea in the U.N. against any harsher sanctions or military action (unless if they’re doing it covertly) while the North Koreans starve to death? How about Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stating that his own people should learn Chinese and he has been receiving various weapons along with Russian and Chinese business firms coming toward Zimbabwe?
Or are you just going to make excuses for them and believe whatever anti-American garbage someone like Raimondo or others like him spread about?
“you find nothing wrong in seeing Russia and China as a couple of “Great Satans”, right”
Wrong. Countries as large and complex as the US, Russia and China cannot be “Great Satans.” They each do some things wrong and some things right. This is not a difficult concept.
Focusing on discreet actions and policies are far more constructive than going off and always whitewashing one and consistently bashing the other.
M,
yes, you don’t use the term “Great Satan”, you just find it appropriate to call Putin “vile” but when it comes to somebody to call Bush “vile”, you think that only a stupid man could think of the U.S. in such a simple “black-and-white” manner. Try to be less biased. Henri Hein in the message above is right – it’s much more complex. Bush and Putin probably have one of the most difficult jobs in the world and they both are too far from being angels.
So let me guess this straight “R2D2” you pretty much seem to totally ignore Raimondo’s rants about how Bush is a “fascist” at the same time groups such as the ACLU and even the Surpreme Court get to go against him or even members of his own party.
So you’re saying that Putin is suddenly a “democratic” leader? Even though former members of his circle have quit and even stated that Putin’s own United Russia Party’s high ranking leadership have been collaborating with members of the Communist Party of Russia? Along with stating that Russia itself is drifting into tyranny again?
I do not believe Bush or Putin are one and the same. Putin is the more tyrannical of the two and that is a pure fact. There have been more deaths of foreign journalists and even deaths of the Russian media under Putin’s reign. Now you don’t see Bush sending thugs to gun down any left-wing journalists or owners of U.S. media do you on the same way Putin continues to have the Kremlin to remain linked with the Russian mafia?
And for people who see things in black and white, when it comes to showing America to be “fascist” that’s pretty black and white thinking.
Henri: you are right that it’s mostly a mistake to view Russia, and even more so China as monoliths.
OTOH, it’s obvious that Putin is rebuilding a dictatorship of sorts — not a Soviet totalitarian one (which attempted central planning, creation of a whole culture, etc.)
Maybe closer to a Tsarist model, with central control by a single leader, suppression of dissent, Mercantilist crony-capitalism, etc.
I wasn’t trying to defend Putin, but even he has done at least one good thing. He met with the Cato people a couple of years ago. I think that’s positive. Perhaps a small gesture, but something I wish more national leaders would do, including our own.
BTW, my overall point was that a term like “great satan” can hardly apply to any country. I don’t like the term at all, but if it must be used, certainly it can only describe an individual and not an entire nation.
Hey “M”, what do you think of the Military Commissions Act? All well and good? No tyranny to be detected?
Henri: point understood. I think Putin is a bad guy, on net, but he could be worse. One of his positive contributions is a rewriting of commercial law to make it much transparent and fair, according to Russian businessmen I interviewwed. (It’s not clear that he himself lives by this law when its inconvenient, though.)
Random: M hasn’t said that everything is just fine in America. He has pointed out that Raimondoists are crazy to see America as the source of all evil, and defend tyrants like Putin in the process of doing so.