Comment by Arms Merchant:
Here’s an interesting perspective from a Pravda editorial writer. His diagnosis of why we are incapable of self-government is It’s the Culture, Stupid. The Russians should be in a position to know, having suffered through their own experiment with Marxism.
Foreigners often have provide valuable perspectives on America, going back to Alexis de Tocqueville. Here is an excerpt from the article Arms Merchant recommends we read. Mishin writes at the blog Mat Rodina.
“American capitalism gone with a whimper“
By Stanislav Mishin
Op-ed in Pravda, 27 April 2009
Posted with the permission of the author.
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.
Then came Barack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.
So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK’s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.
Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper…but a “freeman” whimper.
So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.
The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.
The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
——————————- End except ——————————-
“Whosoever shall come to us with the sword shall perish by it. Upon this stood and stands the land of Russia”.
— St Prince Alexander Nevsky, in the 13th century
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“..although we suffered 70 yrs of this Western sponsored horror show ..”
Why would he/she write ” Western sponsored ” ? Is Pravda sponsored by Russ gov ? Would there be value to them in persons disinvesting from US ?
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Fabius Maximus replies: From the perspective of someone from Asia (or perhaps even Eastern Europe), considering communism as “western-sponsored” is reasonable. Primarily in an intellectual sense, but also slightly in an operational sense. Marx and Engles were German. The German government returned Lenin to Russia in April 1917. Much of the academic support for communist theory came from universities in western europe and the US.
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I remember watching a dance show, like the old Dick Clark show, only more idiotic. Soul Train comes to mind. Any way, the MC was wandering around the dance floor sticking his microphone into the kids faces with predictably stupefying results when he happened onto a Russian foreign exchange student. “What do you think of America? “, the MC gushed.
After some reflection, the kid says, “Well, you know, in Russia, we are always hearing you brag about American freedom. You know, freedom this, freedom that. But I must tell you, in Russia, at fifteen I was driving car with no papers, and I could buy vodka, and pretty much did as I pleased, but here I cannot drive, cannot drink, and when I complain I am told to shut up and do as I’m told.”
Food for thought.
Good grief . Thinking of the Cold War and the current assocation of religion with Terror , I can now beleive the world is really is run by giant lizards masquerading as humans .
Fascinating short little analysis. It really does a decent job of summarizing the views of many Europeans beyond 40 yrs of age. The USA is held in a bi-polar way by many Euros: Adoration and Disdain. Disdain is rapidly overtaking the vestiges of admiration.
They see their children influenced by a vulgar Pop culture and see the results of a massively corrupt Financial debacle headquartered on Wall Street. Who can blame the disgust?
All the while many/most(?) Americans are simply incapable of seeing the culture they are immersed in. The provincialism, myopia, infantilism and arrogance of a US population is simply hard to grasp until you are able to experience life beyond the Borders.
Euros know in their bones that Poltics is and always will be about a War between the Rich and Poor and see that Americans simply do not have a clue. Such a naive populace with such naive “beliefs”.
I think of communism as the opposite of feudalism , and capitalism as the opposite of self-sufficient isolation. Feudalism can provides for people in its own self interest ,but when the crunch comes the Baron’s or Bigbusiness’s interests come first . As we see every day.
Communism provides for the people first ,but at the expense of the interests of the individual . There is no way to adminster the system without creating Barons and Bigbusinesses , so it is inherently doomed . Unless it could be run on an immutable set of rules , fixed so could not be reprogrammed or corrupted .
So is the West sponsoring fundamentalist Islam ?
Normally I read European views of America with interest, but this one is pretty silly. The writer seems to have imbibed the same vodka as the the “democrats” and plutocrats of the Yeltsin years. If he/she was truly educated in a Marxist country, he shows little understanding of how capitalism really works.
The big scandal now, for the “socialism is coming” fearmongers, is the government takeover (70 % stake) of GM. Does anyone really believe that letting GM simply disappear in bankruptcy (everyone admits GM is already insolvent) would be good for the country? The social contract is not a jalopy derby, where only the toughest win, but a mutual self-help agreement, where all are responsible for all.
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Fabius Maximus replies: There exist proven mechanisms for handling insolvent banks and industrial firms. The Bush and Obama administrations have chosen to by-pass those for politically powerful corporations, creditors, and unions. Instead of forcing necessary re-organization, including eliminating their sufficating burden of debt (converting the creditor’s interest into equity ownership), they have instead chosen to provide a choosen few firms with gifts government money — funded by government borrowing.
To say the alternative is allowing GM to “disappear” is a pernicious strawman. That would clearly not benefit creditors, so why would they force it? Avoiding liquidation is the goal of Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Government assistance, perhaps legislative and financial, could have greased this process.
For the banks, the prime creditor is the US government, acting through FDIC. A government take-over, reorganization, and sale probably would have been far cheaper to the taxpayer, and avoided the massive moral hazard created by the Bush/Obama program (financail firms now have a “heads they win, tails we lose” guarantee).
For Chrysler and GM (and eventually Ford), chapter 11 would put those firms on a sound footing. I know of no experts who believe the current plans will do so.
“The social contract is not a jalopy derby, where only the toughest win, but a mutual self-help agreement, where all are responsible for all.”
Heaven’s where do you live? {snip} There exists no Contract like that in the USA that any aware person can identify. The GM BK (and the Chrysler coupe) is not a move towards Socialism due to a complete lack of a Contract. None of the Obama moves are “Socialism”; the Russian is correct: Oligarchs at play.
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Fabius Maximus replies: I agree. The $50 billion we’re borrowing in order to gift to GM is just a gift to politically powerful interest groups. Consistent with the massive gifts (in many forms) to the banks. Crony capitalism at work. Meanwhile millions of people are going bankrupt, losing their homes. No bailouts for them!
Penetrating analysis, better than most of what Krugman puts out these days. Without the full collaboration of the US news media, Mr. Obama could never have accomplished his huge takedown of the market economy.
The rest is simply aftermath.
Sad but true,wish some American paper would print it,I know ours would not…
Well, at least “The Plan” is now clear. Pay off selected oligarchs, re-inflate the economy by printing insane amounts of money to the astonishment of the world,(paraphrasing the old joke, if you owe the bank a few trillion, it’s the bank that has a problem), and generally kick the can down the road. Hopefully, well after the 2012 cycle, that can will of course become a 55 gallon drum way too big to kick again, but the “right” people will still be in power and that’s what matters. But we’re not Russia, no, no, definitely not Russia. For one thing they drink more than we do, and they wear funny hats.
Having lived my entire life in America, and having been born in the 70’s, I am a direct product of the dumbing down of America.
Yet I read things like what Mishin has written and I couldn’t agree more. Our America is nothing like what it was meant to be when it was founded and little remains at this point but to “close the gate and slaughter the pigs”.
In all of my limited education, I know not what can be done about the things Mr. Mishin has written about. I am a father of 2 children, desperately struggling to take care of them. I am not privy to gross self indulgences. I am not free. I am already shackled in a 9-5 job with little chance of escape and little influence upon my fate.
You have pointed out the problems aptly, can you point out what to actually do? What does someone like me need to do?!?
Anyone? Anyone at all have an answer? Because unless an actual plan becomes manifest to the average people just like me I see no way out.
So, thank you for pointing out the pus filled bleeding wounds of the American culture, my good Russian doctor…. I guess I will never be able to afford the cure..
Technically I think the correct term is Facism, as defined by the Mussolini Govt where the term comes from (Hitler’s National Socialism was quite different). Under Marxism then all the existing elites would be in front of a firing line real quick, then a new bunch would take over.
Basically Facism is a national elite of Govt and Business. United in conservatism, well partially, if someone could make a buck then conservatism went out the door. Govt guaranteed monopolies abounded. The proles (us that is) would have no rights, no unions, ideally no representation at all, lots of labour camps for those who didn’t like it (or just fell out of favour). A future, for us, of forelock tugging to our ‘betters’, bolstered by the Church of course.
The ‘great and the good’ would make all the decisions .. because they are obviously so genetically superior to us proles.
Such a sucessful system .. not.
Oh I just realised I have just perfectly described the DOD and the Washington ‘elite’ in the US.
What Obama is doing now is far more from the ‘Facism’ playbook than Marxism. If he was a Marxist a lot of Wall Street guys would be enjoying their daily waterboarding. “Wake up, first the waterboarding then breakfast, then more waterboarding and then break rocks all day and then ………”
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