[lbo-talk] How do you spell Bush in Russian? "P-u-t-i-n"

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Sep 14 08:39:31 PDT 2004


Chris:
> Note: Regional governors in Russia are popularly
> elected in name only. In fact, they are appointed by
> local business groups to whom they then owe favors.
> This generates endless corruption. Weir must know
> this. Why does he write such crap?

American discourse on foreign issue is extremely sanctimonious - it is more of a morality play to reinforce popular dogmas (whatever they might be) with exotic illustrations. They belong to the same genre as the "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift - they are fictitious tales that use foreign lands and their inhabitants as props to make a moral point at home.

The point of the "crap" you mention is to underscore the value of formal democracy and market capitalism - and most US reporting on foreign affairs falls into that category - including the piece by Katrina vanden Heuvel in "The Nation" that you commented on a few days ago. Katrina was really writing about Bush's Amerika - Russia was but an allegory of despotic tendencies.

Wojtek



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