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Roger Annis: "PS Thomas says "our man in Vancouver" should desist from commenting on Russia because he doesn't live there. Hmm, I am guessing from Thomas' name that he is not Russian and cannot call Russia his homeland. Regardless, I trust he is not arguing for some new listserve guideline that contributors should only comment on matters concerning the country where they reside, or some such arbitrary restriction. For Thomas' information, I have spent a great deal of time and resources during the past year on travel precisely so I may be better informed on the events in Ukraine and their international ramifications." Nowhere did I write that Roger Annis should "desist" from commenting on Russia. What did I imply very strongly was that he should be better informed about what is actually going on here. I don't understand how my surname and Russia's not being my "homeland" could possibly be a handicap in understanding events here. On the other hand, being completely fluent in Russian (and able to understand Ukrainian a bit when push comes to shove) and having lived in Russia on and off for over twenty years, as well as extensive contact and work with grassroots and leftist organizations should be something of an advantage, no? As for what country is going extreme rightist in a big way and right off the edge of the map, my money is on Putin's Russia: hence the illegal occupation and the "invisible" invasion of East Ukraine, and the total media and societal hysteria accompanying it. But more than that, and this has been going almost since day one of Putin's deplorable reign, there has been the extreme concentration of all financial and political power in the hands of a very tiny elite, the terrorizing of civil society and minorities, rampant clericalism, waves of xenophobia and homegrown, lethal neo-Nazism on the streets (did you miss the part in my last message, Roger, about hundreds of murders and beatings of foreign students, antifa activists, and Central Asian migrants in Petersburg, Moscow and other parts of the country over the last ten years by skinheads and neo-Nazis? Do the names Stanislave Markelov, Nikolai Girenko, and Timur Kacharava mean anything to you?), topdown attacks on Russian's fine traditions and institutions of education and scholarly research, a bludgeoning of the country's built heritage, especially in Moscow and Petersburg, a bloating of the state security and bureaucratic apparatuses to well beyond their Soviet levels, the official encouragement of the sense of being under attack from the rest of the world. again to the point of hysteria, etc. Occasionally, I repost items to this list from my blog. Here is what I posted there earlier today and yesterday: https://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/crackdown-unionists-kaluga-auto-industry/ This is about trade union activists in Kaluga, which has become a cluster for foreign auto manufacturing plants, being raided and taken downtown for a little shake-up by the "anti-extremism" police. Anyone with any awareness of how the independent labor movement has been shaping up under Putin's reign would know that this kind of official intimidation is quite routine. Now the "eshniki" (as the Center "E" officers are "affectionately" called) have the added advantage of accusing trade union activists of beings "agents of the West" and "fifth columnists." It's all part of the exciting hysterical zeitgeist here now. This is an even lovelier item, which will give you a good sense of the Black Hundreds-style direction in which parts of the elite and the "uncivil" part of civil society seem to be pushing the society. I'll quote it in full: https://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/novosibirsk-tannhauser-novopashin/ Alexander Novopashin, prior of Novosibirsk’s Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, has been awarded an Extremism Prevention pin and a Service to the Motherland medal, second degree, as reported on the cathedral’s site and an official legal information website. According to the text of the March 23 decree, signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Novopashin received the Service to the Motherland medal, second degree, for “successes achieved in his career, many years of diligent work, and active involvement in public life.” Earlier, on March 21, the archpriest was awarded the pin of the Main Directorate for Extremism Prevention. As reported on the site of Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the priest has worked on the problem of totalitarian sects for over twenty years. He argues that contemporary sectarianism is one form of the extremist movement. As the noted on the cathedral’s site, “The priest stresses that extremism has many faces. Today it is manifested not only in the form of totalitarian sects but also in the increasing aggression of ultraliberals, sexual perverts marching with flags in the streets of our cities, illegal pseudo-cultural stunts in the form of exhibitions, theater performances, etc., designed not only to shock the audience but also to humiliate and insult the human dignity and religious sentiments of believers.” According to online publication Taiga.info, Novopashin has appealed to parishioners to attend a rally in downtown Novosibirsk on March 29 and demand the banning of the opera Tannhäuser at the local opera theater. The official theme of the rally is “responsibility of the authorities for offending the feelings of believers.” The declared number of participants is three thousand people. source: http://www.fontanka.ru/2015/03/26/145/ If I had ten pairs of hands and ten computers, I could post ten times more stuff like this every day, most of it based on mainstream media sources like Fontanka, and you'd still be missing most of the picture. We've long been moving from fuzzywuzzy "authoritarianism" to the scary f-word, and no amount of badgering of me on Roger's part can change that reality, just as Russian Insider's trolling of the NYTimes article had nothing to do with the real neo-Nazi conference here and the incensed reaction to it on the part of thousands of Petersburgers and other Russians. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
