For what it's worth I used to be a firm believer in the Swedish model. What changed is that I spent four years in Sweden and became aware of the effect that welfare has on motivation. Refugees are particularly disadvantaged by it, but the effect on native Swedes is dire too.
Thank you, too! Europeans' concerns about immigration help put into perspective their attitudes towards Russia. For example, consider 2004 report by Alvaro Gil-Robles on human rights in Russia. Section V ("Rights of national minorities") almost looks like he was desperate to find a good model which could be useful for Europe, too.
Well none of those states claim to be socialist. They're multiparty democracies with a social democratic party.
And they don't have 'perfect human rights records'. All of them ban hate speech for example and defined hate speech widely enough that disagreeing with the groupthink is potentially illegal. E.g. disagreeing with state policies on mass immigration, or welfare.
They do all have high taxes though. Which is ironic as a society which taxes people heavily but grants them lots of benefits when they're unemployed is probably only possible with a small and culturally homogenous population. E.g. in a great article from Rosengard, an immigrant ghetto in Sweden...
Of course dissenting on immigration is basically impossible in Sweden. Same in Germany. Unfortunately as Engels' article points out high welfare combined with a generous asylum policy means you end up with a lot of people who will probably never work. And they'll have children who will also never work. This is not good for social stability.
What you said makes sense. Thanks for the articles; that's high-quality reporting.
In Marxism-Leninism you need to take away human rights from opponents of the regime in order to build socialism, otherwise those regime opponents will overthrow the regime and reinstate capitalism.
Owing to that indoctrination, conflating economy with human rights was natural for Soviet dissidents. However, in the year of 2017, Marxism-Leninism has no viability as a concept. Contemporary socialism is associated with European welfare states such as Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, etc., in which massive state interventions into the economy are accompanied with a perfect situation with human rights.
Hal_Porter, thanks for an inspiring article. Beyond its value as a history reminder, it's interesting as a lesson in psychology, because reading about other people's motivation is always fun.
That said, I take some issues with that article. First is the ease with which Schmemann connects the dots between the Soviet Union and Putin's Russia:
The sad truth is that the collapse of the Soviet state, which seemed to vindicate everything the dissidents fought for, did not lead to the democratic state they presumed would follow.... Sakharov would be ninety-three now, and I presume he would be enormously active, writing letters and statements...
... He did not, alas, leave behind a Russia democratic and free. That may take generations.
There is a lapse in that logic and it is failing to account for Russia's 1990s. If you wish to get a better insight into contemporary Russia (than Schemann and his likes might offer), I advise you to read Paul Klebnikov's "Godfather of the Kremlin". It's a mainstream book, perhaps somewhat out of fashion now, but still legit.
My second criticism, somewhat related to the first point, is conflating economy with human rights:
Sakharov, though he declined to join the party, was an uncritical believer in the merits of socialism over capitalism until his eyes opened to the violations of human rights.
It's an understandable mistake for a Soviet dissident, but a Western journalist — or us today for that matter — shouldn't uncritically repeat it.
Legally, sure. However I can access those pages from Russia, without using a VPN or a proxy. When I try any of those addresses, I get redirected to https protocol, and, as they say, ISPs technically cannot block a single page from a website if https is used.
Thanks for letting us know. I can't imagine such a vast trove of information being wholesale blocked by a modern country.
You are welcome.
More precisely, Wikipedia was blocked for a brief period of time -- perhaps a day -- in 2015, over some article about a drug. However, very soon the officials backtracked, so not all ISPs have even implemented the ban by the time the block was lifted.
Like the article says, Russia is trying to stop the spread of extremism online. Since Wikipedia is a right-wing extremist propaganda site, it is well within the scope of the Russian Law to block it.
Contrary to what's written in the article, Wikipedia is not blocked in Russia. I live there so I can attest that from personal experience. U.S. journalists typically do not burden themselves with verifying information regarding that country.
You are welcome. Meanwhile, have you noticed that it's just the latest article in a series of (currently) six? There are links to other articles at the bottom of the page, some of which are more in line with the series name ("Russia blog").
While it's an interesting piece about the FBI, the major strength of Mark Ames as a journalist comes from the fact that he ran a newspaper in Russia in 1990s. In 2000s they got some issue with the Russian Government and preferred to shut down (or as Mark Ames puts it, his newspaper was closed). Nevertheless, he knows a great deal about 1990s Russia, and that's a great context most U.S. journalists just don't get. That's why Ames is unique, more or less.
That being the sole consideration, his writing would be just another opinion. But since he knows a vast amount of facts about Russia's most recent history, he is able to make a damn good point.
Well, I'm actually a Russian. Which makes me wondering, if you are so hell-bent on committing a mass suicide, why won't you use American nukes for that purpose?
Now, the really scary part is that starting a war is traditionally the means to resolve a domestic crisis, and it totally looks like the U.S. is in the middle of one.
And as long as he has Snowden under his control Putin can always offer him up as a bargaining chip in the event that the puppet strings on Trump fail and he really needs to make a deal for some reason.
Not in case Snowden is granted Russian citizenship. Once he's a citizen of Russia, he couldn't be forced to leave that country (unless he desires to). And owing to the lack of U.S.-Russia extradition treaty, it won't be possible to hand him over to the U.S., too.
If you follow the data by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Putin should be clearly credited with improving the situation with journalist murders in Russia (i.e. less journalists were killed during his terms in power on the annual basis.) The most typical Western mistake -- ignore or feign ignorance about Russia's 1990s. I don't blame you on that, because you are just a victim of the Russophobic MSM interpretations of the data.
The motherfucking RUSSIANS are stirring up anti-Russian sentiment.
Don't want people to hate you? Stop stealing land, stop murdering people, and stop fucking lying about it.
To his credit, Putin stopped murders of journalists that started well before him at much greater rate than anything that happened during his terms in power.
[W]ell before the madness of WW-II, Jews experienced persecution at the hands of Orthodox Christians in Russia. It's the Fiddler-on-the-Roof thing; the Russian-refugee experience is the family history of many persons of Jewish heritage here in America.
To the extent that Jewish persons seek to influence policy in a way informed by life experience and family history, along with everyone else, Jews in America may have a somewhat different perspective on Russia and other Orthodox Christian countries than Israelis.
You do recognize that persecution of Jews in Russia happened before the October revolution of 1917, right? You do recognize that repressions against Jews were a major reason why many Jews sought to support and lead the October revolution, right? You do know those events had very dramatic effects.
...dude, I don't think you should let ancient life stories affect modern-day policies.
"everything sounds nice and rosy until you find yourself being forced into being a farmer because that's what some bureaucrat designated you as"
Sounds more like 1990s with its free market embrace. As a child I used to spend a good portion of my summer at a family farm because it was the only way the family could meet the ends. And no, it's not because we preferred organic food.
From Strobe Talbott's "Russia Hand", it's clear that the official U.S. supported Russia's Government during the First Chechen war, fought in 1994-1996:
"What little we did know about Chechnya and Dudayev inclined us to accept Moscow's version that it was dealing with an ugly mixture of secessionism and criminality. Besides, the independence that the Chechens were fighting for was against American policy. As a global principle, we were for federalist solutions that preserved existing international boundaries and against the fractionation of large, heterogeneous countries into ethnically based microstates. Hence Gore's terse public comment in Moscow: 'We are following [the situation] closely. We hope very much it can be solved by negotiations. We believe it is an internal matter.' "
They even went that far as to compare the First Chechen War to the American Civil War, when explaining the situation to the press.
Slashdot Mirror
Learn to use frigate browser extension (or other ways to bypass blocking): https://fri-gate.org/
Thanks for having a civil discussion!
For what it's worth I used to be a firm believer in the Swedish model. What changed is that I spent four years in Sweden and became aware of the effect that welfare has on motivation. Refugees are particularly disadvantaged by it, but the effect on native Swedes is dire too.
Thank you, too! Europeans' concerns about immigration help put into perspective their attitudes towards Russia. For example, consider 2004 report by Alvaro Gil-Robles on human rights in Russia. Section V ("Rights of national minorities") almost looks like he was desperate to find a good model which could be useful for Europe, too.
Well none of those states claim to be socialist. They're multiparty democracies with a social democratic party.
And they don't have 'perfect human rights records'. All of them ban hate speech for example and defined hate speech widely enough that disagreeing with the groupthink is potentially illegal. E.g. disagreeing with state policies on mass immigration, or welfare.
They do all have high taxes though. Which is ironic as a society which taxes people heavily but grants them lots of benefits when they're unemployed is probably only possible with a small and culturally homogenous population. E.g. in a great article from Rosengard, an immigrant ghetto in Sweden...
Of course dissenting on immigration is basically impossible in Sweden. Same in Germany. Unfortunately as Engels' article points out high welfare combined with a generous asylum policy means you end up with a lot of people who will probably never work. And they'll have children who will also never work. This is not good for social stability.
What you said makes sense. Thanks for the articles; that's high-quality reporting.
In Marxism-Leninism you need to take away human rights from opponents of the regime in order to build socialism, otherwise those regime opponents will overthrow the regime and reinstate capitalism.
Owing to that indoctrination, conflating economy with human rights was natural for Soviet dissidents. However, in the year of 2017, Marxism-Leninism has no viability as a concept. Contemporary socialism is associated with European welfare states such as Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, etc., in which massive state interventions into the economy are accompanied with a perfect situation with human rights.
https://www.hoover.org/researc...
Hal_Porter, thanks for an inspiring article. Beyond its value as a history reminder, it's interesting as a lesson in psychology, because reading about other people's motivation is always fun.
That said, I take some issues with that article. First is the ease with which Schmemann connects the dots between the Soviet Union and Putin's Russia:
The sad truth is that the collapse of the Soviet state, which seemed to vindicate everything the dissidents fought for, did not lead to the democratic state they presumed would follow. ... Sakharov would be ninety-three now, and I presume he would be enormously active, writing letters and statements...
... He did not, alas, leave behind a Russia democratic and free. That may take generations.
There is a lapse in that logic and it is failing to account for Russia's 1990s. If you wish to get a better insight into contemporary Russia (than Schemann and his likes might offer), I advise you to read Paul Klebnikov's "Godfather of the Kremlin". It's a mainstream book, perhaps somewhat out of fashion now, but still legit.
My second criticism, somewhat related to the first point, is conflating economy with human rights:
Sakharov, though he declined to join the party, was an uncritical believer in the merits of socialism over capitalism until his eyes opened to the violations of human rights.
It's an understandable mistake for a Soviet dissident, but a Western journalist — or us today for that matter — shouldn't uncritically repeat it.
Well, extremely stupid is still extreme.
:-) Just kidding.
What is this "article" thingy you keep talking about?
The first link in the summary.
It is sort of right. Wikipedia itself wasn't banned, but several articles from Wikipedia were, mostly about drugs and suicide.
Here is an example: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...
Legally, sure. However I can access those pages from Russia, without using a VPN or a proxy. When I try any of those addresses, I get redirected to https protocol, and, as they say, ISPs technically cannot block a single page from a website if https is used.
Thanks for letting us know. I can't imagine such a vast trove of information being wholesale blocked by a modern country.
You are welcome.
More precisely, Wikipedia was blocked for a brief period of time -- perhaps a day -- in 2015, over some article about a drug. However, very soon the officials backtracked, so not all ISPs have even implemented the ban by the time the block was lifted.
Using Google translate, you can read the Russian Wikipedia entry about that event. Or just can read about that story in some English media, such as Guardian.
Like the article says, Russia is trying to stop the spread of extremism online. Since Wikipedia is a right-wing extremist propaganda site, it is well within the scope of the Russian Law to block it.
Contrary to what's written in the article, Wikipedia is not blocked in Russia. I live there so I can attest that from personal experience. U.S. journalists typically do not burden themselves with verifying information regarding that country.
Ancient kings, or Stalin? And now Putlin
It suffices to say there were no mobile phones in Russia under Stalin — so brutal was his rule!
Wow, Russia really has blocked Wikipedia?
I'm from Russia. Wikipedia is not banned. The claim in the article is incorrect.
Thank you for that source.
You are welcome. Meanwhile, have you noticed that it's just the latest article in a series of (currently) six? There are links to other articles at the bottom of the page, some of which are more in line with the series name ("Russia blog").
While it's an interesting piece about the FBI, the major strength of Mark Ames as a journalist comes from the fact that he ran a newspaper in Russia in 1990s. In 2000s they got some issue with the Russian Government and preferred to shut down (or as Mark Ames puts it, his newspaper was closed). Nevertheless, he knows a great deal about 1990s Russia, and that's a great context most U.S. journalists just don't get. That's why Ames is unique, more or less.
That being the sole consideration, his writing would be just another opinion. But since he knows a vast amount of facts about Russia's most recent history, he is able to make a damn good point.
Nice try Russian spy!
Well, I'm actually a Russian. Which makes me wondering, if you are so hell-bent on committing a mass suicide, why won't you use American nukes for that purpose?
Now, the really scary part is that starting a war is traditionally the means to resolve a domestic crisis, and it totally looks like the U.S. is in the middle of one.
I kinda hope Russia just nukes us already. Clearly this is what the media wants, let's get it over with.
Haha!
Don't joke like that, dude. Not funny.
And politically -- and this also applies to intelligent people as well -- nobody wants information. All they want is validation.
While we are at that, would suggest you having a look at commentaries on Russia affairs by Mark Ames, which are more on the information side I believe.
Elbrus may be? https://www.extremetech.com/co...
The irony of this story is that a decade ago some Americans argued Russia didn't have speech freedom because of Vladimir Rakhmankov story, a man fined for writing a newspaper article in which he called Putin a "Russia's phallic symbol".
Now I can respond to the allegations of the past. Where is your speech freedom, America?
And as long as he has Snowden under his control Putin can always offer him up as a bargaining chip in the event that the puppet strings on Trump fail and he really needs to make a deal for some reason.
Not in case Snowden is granted Russian citizenship. Once he's a citizen of Russia, he couldn't be forced to leave that country (unless he desires to). And owing to the lack of U.S.-Russia extradition treaty, it won't be possible to hand him over to the U.S., too.
If you follow the data by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Putin should be clearly credited with improving the situation with journalist murders in Russia (i.e. less journalists were killed during his terms in power on the annual basis.) The most typical Western mistake -- ignore or feign ignorance about Russia's 1990s. I don't blame you on that, because you are just a victim of the Russophobic MSM interpretations of the data.
The motherfucking RUSSIANS are stirring up anti-Russian sentiment.
Don't want people to hate you? Stop stealing land, stop murdering people, and stop fucking lying about it.
To his credit, Putin stopped murders of journalists that started well before him at much greater rate than anything that happened during his terms in power.
...dude, I don't think you should let ancient life stories affect modern-day policies.
Tell that to the Muslims - not just in the Mid East, but all over the world
Haha, that's why I'm talking to you and not to them.
[W]ell before the madness of WW-II, Jews experienced persecution at the hands of Orthodox Christians in Russia. It's the Fiddler-on-the-Roof thing; the Russian-refugee experience is the family history of many persons of Jewish heritage here in America.
To the extent that Jewish persons seek to influence policy in a way informed by life experience and family history, along with everyone else, Jews in America may have a somewhat different perspective on Russia and other Orthodox Christian countries than Israelis.
You do recognize that persecution of Jews in Russia happened before the October revolution of 1917, right? You do recognize that repressions against Jews were a major reason why many Jews sought to support and lead the October revolution, right? You do know those events had very dramatic effects.
...dude, I don't think you should let ancient life stories affect modern-day policies.
"everything sounds nice and rosy until you find yourself being forced into being a farmer because that's what some bureaucrat designated you as"
Sounds more like 1990s with its free market embrace. As a child I used to spend a good portion of my summer at a family farm because it was the only way the family could meet the ends. And no, it's not because we preferred organic food.
From Strobe Talbott's "Russia Hand", it's clear that the official U.S. supported Russia's Government during the First Chechen war, fought in 1994-1996:
"What little we did know about Chechnya and Dudayev inclined us to accept Moscow's version that it was dealing with an ugly mixture of secessionism and criminality. Besides, the independence that the Chechens were fighting for was against American policy. As a global principle, we were for federalist solutions that preserved existing international boundaries and against the fractionation of large, heterogeneous countries into ethnically based microstates. Hence Gore's terse public comment in Moscow: 'We are following [the situation] closely. We hope very much it can be solved by negotiations. We believe it is an internal matter.' "
They even went that far as to compare the First Chechen War to the American Civil War, when explaining the situation to the press.