Thursday, June 27, 2013

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

When I heard of the death of Marc Rich the other day, I shrugged it off. Just another Clinton crony, time catches up to us all, etc. But as Steve Sailer notes, Rich was one of the key players in the great Rape of Russia in the 1990s.

Between "business partners" like Rich and "reformers" like Jeffrey Sachs, the former Soviet Union was flayed to the bone, with billions in profits accruing to Western banks and in the hands of hand-picked oligarchs like Boris Berezovsky. In the mainstream Western press, this was (wrongly) referred to as "free market." Perhaps this explains why Americans can't recognize socialism even as it's punching them in the face.

Then came 1999, and NATO's bombing of then-Yugoslavia. It was a wake-up call for Russians: they realized they were being had, changed leadership, and purged the Yeltsin kleptocracy from power.

But just as few in early 1991 could have imagined the USSR disappearing, even fewer in 1999 envisioned a resurgent Russia and the crumbling American Imperium.

Perhaps there is a lesson here. Something about things not staying a certain way forever, especially if they are built on lies and deceit. I doubt the Riches and Clintons and Yeltsins of the world would pay it any heed - but the rest of us might.

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