Well, George, one thing I gotta tell you ... I really really hate communism very much and I refuse to capitalize it. I hate communism much more than I hate capitalism.

EDIT:

About Chernobyl ... a good read, further shows how human error and more importantly communist bureaucracy (communist party have tried to cover it up and be quiet for as long as it could) can create such a long-term disaster for people, and noone would know about it until a large area was contaminated and many people became disabled. The party rushed helpless troops with little or no protection against radiation to cement the reactors, and many soldiers later died of ratiation related deaths - and the work to liquidate the problem was poorly done (because of hasty plans and designs) and today the sarcophagus is falling apart, causing further fears. Communist party suppressed scientists and other prominent people from talking about the situation, refused to listen to plans to properly close the reactor, plans to adequately deal with the situation were ignored, etc. And imagine, all of this was under Gorbachev, the so-called hero hailed by the West ... human life wass worthless in Soviet Union. Today, the demographic issues are changing that, for the better.

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Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture

Last edited by Magnetonium on Jul-27-2007 at 10:52

I think Canada has very good relations with Russia. I never read any Russophobic articles on Russia EVER in any newspapers here. Surely there are articles that make Russia look like a really sad, dying country, but its not politicized campaigning. Putin himself has flown to Canada as one of his first state visits to a foreign country when he came to power. Both countries have great plans for business and commerce, there was Canadian business in my city of Sochi, Russia as well. Trade is very small, but there's a great project being carried out with a joint Canada-Russia design to build special processing stations in Russia to liquify natural gas and ship it in huge tankers to Canada, and Canada can then use it or sell it to others for higher price ;-) from what I've heard, Canadians are getting a good deal in this project.

___________________
Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture

Being an "older" TA, living through the cold war and the Bay of Pigs standoff (which I think was really the starting point of the cold war) I can say that I believe that even though there was a nuclear standoff, the world was a little less chaotic.

I was taught Russian stereotypes, in school, because there was not any exchange of information through the "Iron Curtain". Now, I think Russians are almost more capitalistic (opportunistic?) than Americans.


Russians still drink more than Americans...Right?

quote:

Originally posted by zookeeper Being an "older" TA, living through the cold war and the Bay of Pigs standoff (which I think was really the starting point of the cold war) I can say that I believe that even though there was a nuclear standoff, the world was a little less chaotic. I was taught Russian stereotypes, in school, because there was not any exchange of information through the "Iron Curtain". Now, I think Russians are almost more capitalistic (opportunistic?) than Americans. Russians still drink more than Americans...Right?

Russians drink too much ... they're killing themselves off, sadly ... population is plummeting. Surely they have embraced wildly the market principles, and the world's biggest ever privatization program began in 1990s with disasterous results (at least 60 percent of country owned by mafia) but the corruption and crime is quite rampant in places, because of strong mafia. Berezovsky was a mafia man, too ... he was accused of many things, and many of the reporters who did so are dead now. Every week I read articles on new and new corruption charges, mafia guys getting caught, more "businessmen" and business-related politicians shot ... murder is business. Many Russians were happy to see Putin do something about it, to strike fear into the people who thought they can do anything they want. Some criminals, like Berezovsky, fled the country, others were jailed, others just changed suits and company names. Its going to be a long long way to curb just the corruption alone ... because many of the people involved are former experts in the field who were fired by the Soviet government (ex. KGB, military, doctors, etc.) or who lost jobs, but found more profitable illegal ways to make money. I can talk hours about the different scemes used, different fields, people involved, problems posed ... but the Russian government every year misses out on MANY BILLIONS of revenue dollars because of under-the-table paychecks, corruption, money laundering, crime, illegal immigration. Many people who face the problems just turn to drugs, alcohol, tobacco and kill themselves away.

Communism is the disease that is killing Russian culture, communists have broken up, humiliated, castrated and abused Russian culture - by destroying its culture, religion (which was throughout history the backbone of the strength and pride of us), wiping out millions of Cossacks who were traditionally the guards of Russian frontiers, forcing out and repopulating in different places ethnic minorities and fucking around with their borders, often mixing borders around with their enemies - which had a direct backlash in 1990s; wiping out in 70s years of communist rule many intellectuals, democrats, fair and well-educated politicians and innovators, generals and instead bringing to power the most corrupt, dumb, ignorant and heartless criminals to power - etc. etc. - these and more evils that the communists have done has had a very terrible devastating effect on Russia, that will take MANY MANY generations to fix. In the most optimistic prediction, I can say that even though Russian population right now is about 142+ million, because of massive demographic losses by 2050 it will be 120 million (I am being positive, some Russian scientists predict it will be 100 million). Imagine that now there are less children, and more older people in Russia, and the gap is growing ... by the time these children reach adulthood, their low numbers are going to have severe effect on Russian economy ... there will not be enough to drive the economy. Current generation of young married people in Russia are from the big 1980s boom, and since then it was a large decline in births. When the 20s age wave will hit Russia in 15 years, it will have a very sour effect ...

And that is why I am for a stronger but democratic government in Russia like Putin's, because another Yeltsin will definitely drive the country into a grave. We need to do some major cleaning up in Russia. The country is bleeding ... literally. The West has done nothing. Only the Russian people themselves can do something. We need a STRONG leader. But the Westenr bureaucrats dont want a strong Russian leader. They have been happily watching since 1991 how we are fucking killing each other, drinking to death and giving away our resources ... and when things started to change for the better for the Russian people, thats when in the West it was portrayed as an attack on democracy ... I mean, how can there be democracy in Russia if there isn't a strong leader to enforce it? Yeltsin couldn't give a shit and two fucks about democracy. I've seen it. In the West Yeltsin was portrayed as a great democratic leader bla bla bla bla ... He didnt run the country at all. The Constitution was there, for a show, and noone dared to raise a voice and claim HEY, MY RIGHTS ARE PROTECTED BY THE CONSTITUTION, because mafia would put a bullet in your head like many journalists/politicians in 1990s did. It was the law of the land, the mafia law. It was terrible ... there was absolutely no future. 1990s were the Russian Dark Ages ...

EDIT:
And that is pretty much the situation in many former Eastern bloc countries at the end of the Cold War, except for the Baltic states and countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia who took on a EU-style economic approach and succeeded. Yeltsin and his mafia were still living in the communist days, drinking, partying, selling the country away , etc.


Belarus is a different story, but topic for a different time ... their case is unique.

Last edited by Magnetonium on Aug-02-2007 at 12:10