In the News: Russia, it turns out, is still Russia.

Sex for the motherland: Russian youths encouraged to procreate at camp
By EDWARD LUCAS

Last updated at 21:35pm on 27th July 2007

Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp's mass wedding. "They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia".
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But this organisation - known as "Nashi", meaning "Ours" - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.
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Attempting to raise Russia's dismally low birthrate even by eccentric-seeming means might be understandable. Certainly, the country's demographic outlook is dire. The hard-drinking, hard smoking and disease-ridden population is set to plunge by a million a year in the next decade.

But the real aim of the youth camp - and the 100,000-strong movement behind it - is not to improve Russia's demographic profile, but to attack democracy.

Under Mr Putin, Russia is sliding into fascism, with state control of the economy, media, politics and society becoming increasingly heavy-handed. And Nashi, along with other similar youth movements, such as 'Young Guard', and 'Young Russia', is in the forefront of the charge.
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How wrong we were. Life for young people in Russia without connections is a mixture of inadequate and corrupt education, and a choice of boring dead-end jobs. Like the Hitler Youth and the Soviet Union's Young Pioneers, Nashi and its allied movements offer not just excitement, friendship and a sense of purpose - but a leg up in life, too.

Nashi's senior officials - known, in an eerie echo of the Soviet era, as "Commissars" - get free places at top universities. Thereafter, they can expect good jobs in politics or business - which in Russia nowadays, under the Kremlin's crony capitalism, are increasingly the same thing.

Nashi and similar outfits are the Kremlin's first line of defence against its greatest fear: real democracy. Like the sheep chanting "Four legs good, two legs bad" in George Orwell's Animal Farm, they can intimidate through noise and numbers.
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It is strongly reminiscent of the Tsarist era slogan: "Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationality".
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Those who hoped that Russia's first post-totalitarian generation would be liberal, have been disappointed. Although explicit support for extremist and racist groups is in the low single figures, support for racist sentiments is mushrooming.
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The Kremlin sees no role for a democratic opposition, denouncing its leaders as stooges and traitors. Sadly, most Russians agree: a recent poll showed that a majority believed that opposition parties should not be allowed to take power.
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The new guide for history teachers - explicitly endorsed by Mr Putin - brushes off Stalin's crimes. It describes him as "the most successful leader of the USSR". But it skates over the colossal human cost - 25m people were shot and starved in the cause of communism.
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As the new cold war deepens, Mr Putin echoes, consciously or unconsciously, the favourite weapon of Soviet propagandists in the last one.
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Asked about Afghanistan, they would cite Vietnam. Castigated for the plight of Soviet Jews, they would complain with treacly sincerity about discrimination against American blacks. Every blot on the Soviet record was matched by something, real or imagined, that the West had done.
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I cut a lot of stuff out, full text here. It involves a lot of comparing Russia to Nazi Germany, saying they are horrible for misteaching history in the favor of Soviet Russia, and saying that Russia comparing its historical record of evil to that of the U.S. and other western countries is silly.

Perhaps the first two points are true, but the U.S. has a similarly shitty record when it comes to treating the rest of the world, as well as its own citizens, well, and we are equally unapologetic and in most schools it is glossed over with equal amounts of happiness and sunshine.

But, anyway, this raises the point I actually want to make that seems to be a stumbling point for the U.S. and American's view of the rest of the world.

I ask, "Is democracy the best form of government?" Or, more accurately, "Is democracy the best form of government for every civilization on the planet?"

Our country, being built by Masons, Templars, the Illuminati, and the KKK, has always been a freedom-loving bunch who have a strong desire for direct control of the government by the populace, even if it is often illusionary. Furthermore, the U.S. has the resources to make this sort of thing happen, and as a veritable land of plenty our people are fat and happy, and have the time and energy to scream at the government if it does anything vaguely unpleasant to our tele-opiate dulled senses. Meaningful legislation is rarely passed, and real government scandal is often abated by those in power simply not letting the media see their paperwork.

This sounds a bit bitter, and I only mean it halfway (and largely in regard to our current administration...).

But, what is (apparently) important is that we think we control the government in some way and everyone who is not foreign has rights.

Now, we look over the ocean at Russia. Evil ol' Putin is becoming the next Tzar or the next Stalin or whatever else people wanna say about it. Racism and governmental interference is at a new high. Words words words.

What we forget is that living in Russia sucks. It sucked when it was run by the Tzar. It sucked when it was run by the Soviets. It sucks now that it has a democracy. And, maybe in the near future it will suck while it is whatever Putin turns it in to. Historically, Russia is an unpleasant place to be. In fact, the only way Russia ever seems at all pleasant (to me) is if you happen to be one of those nomadic reindeer herders or the horse lords of the steppes. This is only better by degree, of course, because (being in Russia) it still sucks to be you. Just less than someone stuck in a sucky Russian city.

So, we then have a demoralized population who are all struggling to make ends meet, and they know that this particular economic situation will not change no matter who owns the government.

(America is slowly becoming this, but hush, TV is on!)

I often liken this to being a peasant during the dark ages. One king is deposed by another king after a bloody struggle among their knights and conscripts. End result: one tenth of your crops and your eldest son go to the castle to the East rather than the castle to the West, life goes on and sucks.

So the question is if it matters if you have American-Style democracy or not? In fact, a Fascist regime might even be more effective at ordering the vast expanse of Russian resources that are already pretty shittily arranged, subduing the mafia, and making Russia stable, if still sucky for all involved.

This did happen for Pakistan. They had a democracy which became so corrupt so fast the turbans flew off half the people in the country. This was quickly removed by a military regime that brought order and (relative) prosperity to the country which was being sucked dry by the democratically elected individuals.

Similar patterns can be seen across the globe, and it seems like the further from being a first-world country a place is the harder it is to maintain democracy and the more effective it is just to let them run their countries the same way the had been running them since before white people showed up.

I ponder, and I hope you will ponder as well, does a goat herder in the mountains really care about his vote?

न थे न्यूज़, रशिया इस स्टील रशिया!

Aw shit, my blog is possessed by the devil.

Mondale!

View the site, know the truth.

If anyone asks, I had nothing to do with this.

Thought for the Day

The onions are marching greenly! Grab thine flapjacks and defend the butterfort!

I'm hungry...

The Second Amendment

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." -The Constitution of the United States

This is not the right to own guns for hunting. This is not the right to own guns for self defence. This is not the right to own sporting weapons, or collectibles, or anything else where maybe a machine gun might be too much.

This is the right for individual citizens and the collective population to own enough firepower to overthrow the government in case it ever becomes corrupt. I don't see how it can be interpreted any other way without deleting part of the sentence.

Oh, and THIS is bullshit. It is just a laundry list of crap they felt like adding to the list. Oh no, "military-style" weapons. I mean, wtf? Oh no, a semiautomatic carbine that was made by the Russians, or something that looks like a military gun. They aren't just banning fully automatic weapons, they are banning things that look like them despite the fact that they aren't any more dangerous than their non "military style" weapons. Also, I'm pretty sure they don't get used in crime all that goddamn often. Who has the money to go out and by a fucking reproduction Thompson just to go commit a crime when all it really is is a pistol with a big damn clip. Not that high cap magazines really matter all that much when clips can be changed out so fast anyway... High cap really only mattered when you could also get full auto to back it up. Then some of the things on the list are just nonsensical. Bayonets, for example. WHO HAS EVER COMMITTED A CRIME USING A FUCKING BAYONET! Not to forget those mysterious barrel shrouds or the front grip. Because you know, having a front grip and a pistol grip means you can shoot from the hip, which is the most ineffective way you can fire a gun without jamming it up your own ass. Also, I'm pretty damn sure you can fire *any* gun from the hip, but remember, you are supposed to be afraid of guns, not know any goddamn thing about them. Ban away, remember, you are somehow preventing crime by doing so. ARG! Look out, someone with one of those "black rifles" I've heard about on the news, how can I ever survive! SJKFSAPLHIFOWPEANKLFNSIOPENKLSFIEASNSKSKSSMOOPSHJDOENS

WE'RE SORRY, BUT GUNSLINGER'S BRAIN JUST BLEW A FUSE! HE'LL BE BACK SHORTLY!

Gun Kontroll?

You know, in some ways I do support gun control. There are some things the general public should not have, or should at least need special license to own, and you should always use both hands while firing a weapon.

Shit like THIS is what makes me vehemently opposed to gun control. At least have people who know what they hell they are talking about be the ones that set these limits!

Instead we get anti-gun nuts who only know that guns scare them and if you use enough anti-gun rhetoric it sounds really good for them if it gets passed, second amendment be damned.

Seriously, I can't believe that crap!

Who elects these morons!?!

Arg...

Thought for the Day Quote Omnibus

"If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that."
-Johann Goethe

"Everything's fine today, that is our illusion."
-Voltaire

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
-Oscar Wilde

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
-Mel Brooks

"Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct."
-Chuck Palahniuk

Thought for the Day

Freud said that there were no accidents, but he was European so I don't trust him.

Hrm.

Some nice man made a game about my life. Link!

Thought for the Day

"ZOMG teh muun wimminz r still liek 'argh zombee munfier!'"

Oh, that makes me happy.