There is an interesting documentary up on RT about the failed August 1991 coup.
It is ironic that the cabal that attempted to overthrow Gorbachev actually succeeded - just not in the way they intended. The real winner of the August 1991 drama was Boris Yeltsin, who proceeded to put Gorbachev out of work by dissolving the Soviet Union.
These days, the American press is waxing nostalgic for Boris Nikolayevich, pining for the days when Russia was a "democracy" (which in Empire-speak translates to "does what it's told"). Yet most Russians seem to remember Yeltsin as the fellow who ran Russia into the ground while drinking his troubles away, a buffoon propped up by the Americans.
Yeltsin was ousted in a palace coup at the end of 1999. He died in 2007, and was given a state funeral. Perhaps that was more out of respect for the symbolism - him being the first democratically elected president of the Russian republic and all - than for the man himself. Who knows?
Gorbachev is still around, making a living off the laurels of being the last Soviet leader. Though his word is eagerly quoted in the West, in Russia itself he commands very little respect. Simply put, nobody is nostalgic for the Yeltsin days, or even the last days of the USSR. Russians' support for the current government, warts and all, is almost plebiscitary.
I used to get angry seeing the rampant Russophobia on the pages of American papers. Now I find it amusing. It's all part of the world of fetish and fantasy the Atlantic Empire leadership prefers over actual reality. At the end of the Cold War, they had a choice: be a shining example for the world, or surrender to the temptation of unrestrained power. They chose power - and failed. If sneering at others makes them feel better about that failure, so be it.
The Russians have paid a steep price for their delusions, and seem to have learned something from their mistakes. Would that the Americans will be so fortunate, when it's their turn.
7 comments:
"him being the first democratically elected president of the Russian republic and all"
"Democratically" how? Do you then accept the British and American perversity that is so often called "democracy"?
You do half the work of the Empire for them.
It is noted, for example, that the ancient Greeks did not consider election of officials by majority vote "democratic" at all.
They considered it a form of plutocracy or oligarchy, which indeed it is.
It also might be noted that the Russians in a plebiscite voted overwhelming to maintain the Soviet system, and were ignored, while western-supported gangsters took over.
"Democracy"--ah yes--on the other side American polls show that most Americans have been against the invasion and occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and have been attempting to "vote" a way out since the second Bush midterm.
Instead, what have they got from their democratically elected government--at least one more war (Libya), half a war on the way to a full one (Pakistan), and perhaps another in the making (Iran).
Yes, yes--"Democracy"--very droll.
Eugene, what is your definition of democracy? I take mine straight from Athens: whatever the mob rules, goes. As such, I don't in fact approve of it (as I'm sure you could have picked up from the rest of the blog, honestly). America's founders had a similar disdain for democracy - which is why they created a republic.
So, when I call someone a democrat, that's not a compliment.
"Mob rule" certainly reflects the diatribe of the treatise now known as the Old Oligarch, which establishes the point above in a round about way.
But before jumping to conclusions from a superficial reading of Thucydides, it may help to know more about Athens and the Athenian constitution, which evolved over time.
Aristotle is also pertinent.
In English, C. Hignett's History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century B.C.
is still useful. Also H.F. Kitto's The Greeks, though seemingly general, is a small masterpiece of what most westerners
have not been told about the Greeks and their poleis.
On the other side, one recommends E. M. Wood, The Origin Of Capitalism.
This is a short, elegant book that by the middle gets to the question of what Locke, among others, really means by "free", "improvement" and the rest, and how the British Liberals used law, politics, and force to develop a compulsory market, all under the rubric of "democratic" ideas.
That last work is particularly important because with enough delving you may be able to get a hint as to why the US attacked Yugoslavia (and also Iraq and Libya), and also what is in store for Serbia under the occupation and control of the US and NATO empire.
But that is only skimming the surface, and leaves out the decisive question of Finance Capitalism and where it is heading, just as it did under the British and Austria Hungary.
Recently Paul Craig Roberts made an interesting about face on Marx and Lenin, having finally come to understand what they were saying about financial instruments and debt credit.
One leaves the Americans and their egregiously flawed Constitution and Republic to some other day.
How US and Europe rigged the election in 96 to put their man Yeltsin and their CIA/MOSSAD/MI6/KGB/Turkish/Rothschild mafia clique into power aligned with the Yeltsin family none as “The Family”.
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=14536&IBLOCK_ID=35&PAGE=1
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,984833,00.html
Funny how they complain about Putin and his FSB partners seizing power in Russia when there own people like the Yukos oil company hired an ex KGB colonel Alexei Kondaurov.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Kondaurov
I have been keeping tabs on information regarding the Norwegian terrorist Brevik when information emerged that he visited Belarus 3 times and reportedly trained in military camps and underwent militant terrorist training under the guidance of 51-year-old Valery Lunev, a former colonel of Belarusian special forces which they are trying to spin as anti-Belarussian/Russian FSB conspiracy.
http://bigpeace.com/nmachiavelli/2011/08/05/breivik-the-belarus-russian-chechen-connection-and-the-cia/
This despite the fact that Mr Lunev and his associates are linked with western intelligence against Belarus and coordinating operations against Russia in Chechnya given the fact that Mr Lunev is a convert to Islam and married to a relative of the first Chechen president Dudaev and prominent western intelligence front company Far West Gulf LLC running covert operations against Russia in Chechnya and neighbouring Republics.
“Valery Lunev (cover name, b. 1960, in Kuliab, Tajikistan). Officer of the Soviet General Staff. In the 1980s took part in anti-COCOM activities in the Netherlands. Has Dutch passport. Major-General of Belorussian KGB, in active reserve since 2007. Served in Iraq (1990-1991). Converted to Islam after marrying a relative of President Dudaev . Pan-Turkist, connected to radical branch of the Grey Wolves underground. Fluent in Arabic and Farsi. Executive Director of Far West, LLC .
http://www.argumentations.com/Argumentations/StoryDetail_4396.aspx
Mr Lunev himself is openly anti-Lukachenko and supports the CIA/MI6 backed opposition.
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pravda.info%2Fpolitics%2F2698.html
Paul Murphy in his book Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terrorism noted in a Janes intelligence Digest article from 11th January 2002:
“Belarus, a former Soviet republic that ended up with a large stockpile of conventional Soviet weapons and is today one of the worlds top arms exporters, Moldovia, and the Ukraine have all shipped arms to Chechnya.
On 11 January 2002, Janes Intelligence Digest reported that Victor Sheyman, the former head of the Belarusian Security Council, coordinated the arms shipments through former members of the Belarussian Almaz antiterrorist squad who had become merceneries in Chechnya. They served as intermediaries for the delivery of these weapons.
Coincidence?
Belarussian authorities suspect that he might be connected to the Mink metro bombing which western intelligence are working overtime to overthrow as an indirect attack on Russia.
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpda.nr2.ru%2Fincidents%2F341381.html
Mr Brevik has all the hallmarks of Mohammad Atta with connection to western intelligence, mysterious travels and connections to an individual in Poland that do not fit the media narrative, military camp training, girlfriend (possibly handler?) and a large unaccounted sum of money $700,000.
This is just the tip of the iceberg this mysterious Far West Gulf, LLC has links to the Yukos oil company.
Compliments on "Winter Is Coming." The Spectacle in its aspect as "news" is indeed one of the commonalities of the criminal attacks on Yugoslavia, Iraq, and now Libya.
But it was also a more hidden element, as is now clear, in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, supposedly because it was a base--mostly fictional--of "Bin Laden" and "Al Qaeda."
As for that latter, isn't it curious that it makes an appearance on the side of the Albanians, then in Iraq, and now as part of the ragtag coalition of "rebels" in Libya?
One also notes that a prelude to a similar intervention against Belarus seems in preparation, not to mention against various countries in Latin America.
Does that have a Norwegian connection as well, after Jack above?
Belarus may be harder to pull off, but the Russians seem to be sleeping.
Why else abstain from a UN resolution in regard to Libya which was transparently aimed at regime change and Neo-Colonial occupation by NATO, whether by local surrogates or directly?
And how can protecting civilians be reconciled with bombing Sirte, which the British are now doing?
Is there a Russian who dares prosecute Cameron and Obama and Sarkozy for war crimes?
One would have thought the Georgian attack on Russian peacekeepers and Osetian civilians would have been the handwriting on the wall.
And now the Russians feign surprise that the Iranians are suing them over breach of contract in regard to missile systems that they had already paid for?
The Russians mention "sanctions" in defense of breaking the contracts.
Are they that simple-minded or talking out of both sides of their mouth?
For one thing the missile systems were purely defensive.
Who now will trust the Russians to keep their contracts any more than they will trust western Finance Capitalists to guard their funds?
It is easy to attribute some of this curious behavior to Medvedev,who spent his youth listening to mediocre British rock, but Putin was also involved in reneging on the missile deal.
Have the whole Russian people suddenly forgot how to play chess?
The whole scheme is clearly Debordian, with some key Sanguinetti thrown in. And that is not necessarily cause for unmitigated pessimism. Debord in one aspect can be seen as a kind of anti-Bernays, for example, and if you read him closely he alludes now and then to all the factors he will NOT delineate but which will have to be logically reconstructed by the intelligent reader.
And indeed it may be that the most important part of Debord is what he does not say.
In any instance it is quite a bit more than a McCluhanesque "the media is the message" though that is included.
The UN--in origin a British and US plan for Anglo-American world empire, NATO, "democracy", "sanctions", the Hague, etc.--are also all part of the same message.
Anyway, what more does one need to realize that the demonizer is by far the most egregious of demons?
One is fairly certain you know about the role of Bernays in engineering the coup against Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954.
If not, the British series, "Engineering of Consent" has a very well done segment on it available on youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnYZVNVqBgU
In regard to your "Winter" essay one might only add that the demonization of Serbia, Iraq, and now Libya by the Spectacle is nothing new, and is formally very close what the US did in regard to Guatemala as orchestrated by Bernays.
Mutatis mutandis, one can see similar lines in Goebbels, but recall that Goebbels was a student of Bernays rather than the reverse and had Bernays' Propaganda in an honored place in his library.
So it is the same old trickery, and still works to a degree. At which point one might ask--why does it work and what is to be done to stop it?
Here again Debord had much more to impart than what he voiced.
The Chinese, on the other hand, seem to have part of the solution at least. But of course they also had long experience with the old China Lobby, didn't they, and they have long memories, which it seems the Russians are fast losing.
Post a Comment