Sing along comrades!

F-S-B, S-V-R, M-O-U-S-E!

from russia with...nada

Wow. I've noted for some time that Russia was second to the US in hits to my blog. Now they've ceased altogether, incredible. This happened with China back around 2007. Things must be getting bad for free speech there! In Russia, you don't surf the Internets, only secret police do, all day, all night!

 Postscript  03.19.2013: Russia is back, but with far lower traffic than normal.

songs from the sitemeter: in russia...

I commented on this before, but wow, interesting, and hello to my Russian readers!

Here's the gist: there are nearly as many Russian readers of this blog as Americans. I'm still trying to process this to understand why. If any of you can enlighten me, I'd be very pleased. Either way, it's pleasing in itself.

What can I say except that I feel the US and Russia are so similar, what with both nations being oligarchies and police states? Shhhhh, I know, don't tell the little people here in A'murka that, especially the ones who still have purchasing power...

A very curious spam...

Ed.--You wouldn't believe some of the crazy emails and comments I get from operating this blog. Today, I got this in my email box as a comment, and in Cyrillic (Google translator did the rest):

Ladies and Gentlemen [This must, in fact, be Yakov Smirnoff].

If you are interested in a little politics, you must have noticed - this sudden unrest in Africa
has an ulterior motive.

There are 2 versions of these events - the "official" and "informal," and both versions are probably far from actual facts:

[B] Version 1: [/ b] Gaddafi - a tyrant and autocrat, shot at civilians, so it should be removed.
[B] Version 2: [/ b] in fact Europe and America wanted a little Libyan oil, and they decided to put on a small "riot"

Consider Version 1.

Yes, Qaddafi has one more old man, he of course it would be time and retired. But did you know that specifically in Libya people have a very high preference under his rule? Teachers receive a $ 3,000, paid the unemployed about $ 1,000 and so on. Yes, he was tame small group of rebellious Bedouins, but does anyone understand the real causes of these riots? This version does not hold water.

Version 2.

Oil Libya? Yes, it is of high quality, Libyan oil is very clean. But she was not so much.
And besides, why would haunt Egypt and other African nations, which the whole of last
year in general no one disturbed and worried? And then suddenly they're "tyrants," "Monsters", etc.

Yes, this situation is further fueled the price of oil. Individual corporations are profitable.

But the truth is shorter.

Gaddafi is not so long ago began to combine Middle Eastern country under the idea to move to the calculation for oil and products are not dollars, not euros, and an alternative to all this. And Egypt - one of the countries which it supported ...

Read more here:

http://sterligov.livejournal.com/4389.html

However, in the popular media, it will never say.

PS: Saddam Hussein, incidentally, also had such undertakings. Generally, after the crisis, sooo many the country began to think about getting rid of reliance on the U.S.. Sooner or later
it happens. The Fed has no place to lower rates.

Spread it where you can. People need to know the truth.


By the way, is also on the topic: The military operation in western Libya, Libya, France suffered an invasion of Libya in the day, destruction, France has promised to attack Libya after a few hours, against France has promised to attack Libya after several hours, killed ...

Hey, it takes all kinds. Whoever wrote it must know English as well. Anyway, some of the observations strike me as true though it would be a stretch to call Gadaffi's regime just or even reasonable.

What did they post this comment on? An observation I made from 2006 on Mark Foley and the GOP being a gaggle of sexual perverts, which is true. Moose and squirrel...

If Congress and the President keep putting band-aids on shotgun wounds...

Yakov Smirnoff will be able to do national tours again and preface every joke with: "In America... ." What a country!

Songs from the Site Meter: They're looking for Jaenelle IV...

Ed.--Hey, wouldn't you? She looks svelte. This one's great, the meme is going out and her cover is all-but-blown as a member of the white hate movement in America and possibly as some kind of a courier for them internationally. Yes, they're even reading about this in Mokba! This one almost tops the Palfrey story as an example of high weirdness...almost.

One for the ages:

Domain Name		(Unknown)
IP Address		194.186.53.# (Golden Telecom)
ISP		EDN Sovintel
Location		Continent : Asia Country : Russian Federation (Facts) State/Region : Moscow City City : Moscow Lat/Long : 55.7522, 37.6156 (Map)
Language		English (U.K.) en-gb
Operating System		Microsoft WinNT
Browser		Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.12) Gecko/2009070611 Firefox/3.0.12
Javascript		version 1.5
Monitor		Resolution : 1024 x 768 Color Depth : 32 bits
Time of Visit		Jul 31 2009 5:14:22 am
Last Page View		Jul 31 2009 5:15:29 am
Visit Length		1 minute 7 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://blogs.phoenix...he_cowardly_holo.php
Visit Entry Page		http://chickasawpick...esmell.blogspot.com/
Visit Exit Page		http://chickasawpick...esmell.blogspot.com/
Out Click		ASSHOLISM'S PRAVDA http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Time Zone		UTC+3:00
Visitor's Time		Jul 31 2009 1:14:22 am
Visit Number		57,253

Official: Romanov Princess Anastasia and Prince Alexander were slaughtered by Bolshevik forces in 1918

Russia--It's a lieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! She's in Atlantis with Bigfoot, D.B. Cooper, and all those missing planes and ships from the (fictional) Bermuda Triangle! Lieeeeeeeeeeeessssss!!!!!!

Well, at least something along those lines. Hey, it sold books for decades, what with dumbells speculating for dumbells what had happened to the Prince Alexander and Princess Anastasia. Armies of crazy old Slavic ladies claimed that they too were Anastasia, and even a few faceless cranks claimed they were Alexander. All of it was a lie, a body of completely worthless literature.

Nobody should have cared. The only thing that matters now is what really happened, and now we know: all of the Romanovs were killed by the Ural Soviet under orders of Lenin and the Central Committee in the month of July, 1918.

Of course they were going to slaughter all of them. That was the M.O. of the Bolsheviks, beginning with the deposed Tsar's family. Like the "Night of Long Knives" for the Nazis, this was what kicked-off the slaughter that was to come, the crossing of a threshold. Nothing could be the same after the Ural Soviet's deed, under orders from the Central Committee under V.I. Lenin.

Lenin directly ordered the murders of the Romanovs, and it was hidden until around the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. One of the first publications to note Lenin's orders (in memo form) was in Lenin: A New Biography (1994, first published in Russia years earlier) a book by the late Major General Dmitri Volkogonov that details most of the known machinations at the time it was written. Volkogonov had unparalleled access to the Party archives during the last years of the Cold War and was finally able to release his discoveries during Glasnost and the final fall of the Soviet regime.

The Truth (I think this is the original article on the findings by U.S. Military pathologists): http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004838

Obama Justice Department ends raids on medical marijuana facilities

Washington D.C.--There's a new sheriff in town. Once again, we're seeing valid and significant change that we would never have seen under a Republican president and/or a Congress dominated by them. As Attorney General Eric Holder stated yesterday, it's "now policy."

For those who are cynical about the incoming administration (only in office now a little over a month, a bit premature and telling of the cynics), this is good news and a real change as well as a move away from wasteful government spending for law enforcement programs that do more harm to our society than good.

Marijuana drug pigs had their "last hurrah" at the end of January before the Obama administration could do anything to stop it, just three days after the new president's inauguration. Thirteen states have now legalized the licensing of production, distribution, and use of medical marijuana. It's not going to stop there, and the ranks of the police are turning against past drug interdiction policies.

The last two states to recently legalize medical marijuana were Michigan and Massachusetts in November of last year during the national and state elections. In Massachusetts, the police union initially lobbied against the legislation but have been coming around to the new reality. Nobody said change was easy to adjust to, but they're doing it in Massachusetts right now, and in several other states.

As part of Drug War policy, appointed "Drug Czars" who run the ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy) are supposed to lie--yes lie--about the properties, medical uses and beneficial or benign attributes of marijuana. From Section 704 of the Reauthorization Act of 1998:

...[The Director of Drug Control Policy] ...(11) may serve as spokesperson of the Administration on drug issues; (12) shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812) and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that-- (A) is listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812); and
(B) has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration;...

Incredibly, federal drug control agents and officials can even use government funds to meddle in local and state elections to effect the outcomes of any marijuana legalisation proposition up for vote during elections, a clear violation of the Hatch Act, but we don't need no stinkin' badges anyway.

Remember that this was passed under a Republican controlled Congress at the time back in their salad days of 1998. The Clinton administration did little to oppose it, but they were trying to save themselves over a lie told under oath about a blowjob, it being a national priority and obsession of the GOP at the time. If you don't like the government meddling in your lives, and you want a government that does less of it in general, hitting rightist and reactionary advocates of these drug policies is a good place to start. The time is ripe since they're losing on all fronts.

Sitting on our laurels isn't going to be a smart move for anti-prohibition forces and the point will be to keep pushing (back) until significant victory and precedent are achieved. All this aside, this is a state's rights issue, period. The incoming Obama administration supports this contention and the legitimacy of medical marijuana for those with terminal illnesses who need it desperately, and this isn't even mentioning all the green uses (including the production of needed biomass, food, and energy) from the cannabis plant. The Drug War is the finest and most obvious example of wasteful spending outside of the F-22 fighter and the failed "Star Wars" program, but in America, if it's broken, don't fix it.

But it really is a state rights issue. This is where I agree with Libertarians...but that's about it, and I'm hardly alone. For those who want to live in a police state, I advise relocation to Colombia or Russia, their authoritarian digs should be to your tastes. Our drug laws were originally crafted to legally harass people of color--Blacks and Hispanics in-particular. The support was bipartisan, but as is their wont, and when there are rights to be rolled back, the Republican Party tends to be leading the charge.

It's fitting that when we finally got a president of color, the walls began to fall regarding drug prohibition, ultimately race and class-based laws primarily for the purpose of arbitrary antidemocratic social control. Just over 75 years ago, the walls came down with alcohol prohibition in the face of an unprecedented economic crisis and sustained calls for its end. We live in similar times and in a much less "racialist" culture. There are other problems to address. Bluntly-put, we need the revenue. It's time to legalize and regulate (including taxation) of all psychoactive drugs, and a time to move towards treatment and away from the militarization of our police departments.

Cops Against Prohibition:

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

The Reauthorization Act of 1998:

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/about/98reauthorization.html

AG Holder's statement yesterday in a Q&A:

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/watch.aspx?MediaId=HP-A-15821

A Russian Finlandia Vodka ad from a old Prague Spring soldier

Ed.--This was forwarded to a friend of mine who lives in the Czech Republic--Brno to be exact--so much a citadel of computer hacking and pirating that many large tech-firms decided to hire them. My pal in Brno claims he was a signer of the Charter 77 Human Rights Statement to President Carter by Czech dissidents; we met in 1986, here in South Bend, we both worked at the same restaurant.

I have little reason to doubt him--he was kicked-out of Soviet dominated Czechoslovakia just months later. Lucky him. If you wonder what things are like in Russia right now, here's a little cultural artifact, a peek. I agree with the logic of the ad, as vulgar as it may be. It's just true, and it works. The bottom-text appears to be Czech. As anyone can tell, I created this ad, never mind the temerity of posting it here, at another internet location. The gall, I know.

Yakov Smirnoff and Rawstory's Laris Alexandrovna to wed ( a satire)

What a country:

"This is bigamy, I'm already married, and everyone's crazy except me," said the star journalist (or is it "Tsar journalist?) to the Russian, famous for telling fart-jokes about life in Soviet Union.

"Is big of you too," said the ex-Cold War asset, cribbing material from Marx...Groucho Marx. At least he has a cameo in Buckaroo Banzai, a movie that didn't grease his road to American citizenship that finally came in the form of a 1986 photo-op for the Reagan administration at the French-made Statue of Liberty.

"In Russia, wedding dress returns self to store, people so poor. In Russ--uh!" the bride cut him off, much to the relief of geriatric liberal tourists visiting Branson, Missouri, all three of them.

"You haven't lived in Russia for years...in Russia, in Russia! Is all you can say! In Russia--you are to be driving me insane in mad world. This Wall Street bailout is a coup d’état, everyone else crazy, especially Mistah Kurtz!" Her Pushkin and Conrad were showing, and the American Bastille was calling. Lewd, I know.

"Uh, in 'former Soviet Union,' only time people allowed to stand in line is on way to KGB headquarters and urinal, and urinal broken since Lenin died in 1924."

"Is no longer KGB--is FSB now stupid. Ach, life of poet is hard, and me with no dacha to run to," stated the would-be poetess, having once fallen into the reviled world of Madoff's NASDAQ and the whorish swamp of journalism where "gender-neuter person is wolf to gender-neuter person." Smirnoff went on (and on, and on...) with the usual: "In Russia--is 'polit-ical-ly correct'?--no one is old, even age stagnates because there is no money. Everyone is still young, even surviving members of Politburo. Last week, tractor go on strike in Smolensk."

"...That coup is now nearly complete and checkmate is all but unavoidable. We are in a crisis so dangerous that should these people succeed in their coup, your party affiliation will no longer matter, your American flag will be a nice collectible item of something that once was, and your version of God will be worshiped in secrecy because your freedoms will be owned by the few... ," came the perilous non sequitur from the bride.

"In Russia, we don't have coups anymore, is too expensive! Everyone just stay home and eat plaster, like in America now too," argued the groom with the Ukrainian bride. What a country. If you don't like it in Russia, you need to go to A'murka, pal. That'll learn ya.'


Postscript, 12.29.2008: I just keep knocking them out of the park. Larisa discovered this piece today and very charitably wrote a thumbs-ups on it! Thanks, Larue! She wrote that it was "paranoid" which I object to. My own opinion of her own journalism is very high, I think she's done and is doing very good work. But that doesn't change my opinion of the profession itself, it's a swamp, and hopefully she's cleaning some of it out with her stellar work.

That said, her hyperbole over the Wall Street bailout as a "coup" is most definitely paranoid when even the ruling class in America is going into meltdown, it was unwise and unwarranted. She wasn't alone in her alarmism back when a bailout was first proposed, and I don't believe her knowledge of history was good enough to be making such a bold and alarmist statement.

I should also add that she and I tussled during the Palfrey saga, and that she can take this satire as a kind of "apology." There's no point mentioning her recent sparring with another Huffpo columnist on the recent death of a GOP IT (computer tech) in what is definitely a case of strange timing. What I really protest is that Alexandrovna and others in journalism claim they have no agendas and that they tow-the-line of "professional objectivity," which is an insult to the intelligence of anyone with a pulse. But, a coup? That happened during the 1870s, we've been wage slaves to a kind of managerial Taylorism ever since.

We're watching the collapse of American capitalism, a reason for hope, and hardly a "coup," but the reverse. You miss these things when you don't have a good working knowledge of systems in crisis. Also, she bandies about statements on how people who disagree with her are "insane" quite a lot. She's not half-wrong, but welcome to the Internet. There it is.

A modest proposal: quit thinking that with every exposure of corruption that something's going to come of it. This system's in free fall and the guardians of it are even going to protect a bozo like George W. Bush in order to preserve long-held power and privilege. "Inaccurate"? "Paranoid"? That would be the "Wall Street coup" theory, especially considering we're staring an almost fully nationalized economy in the eye--that's socialism, and I have no problems with that. That means a scaling-back of the power of the corporations. Oscar Wilde.

OK, there was an inaccuracy: she does own a dacha. I wasn't aware a satire was held to the same standards as a doctoral dissertation, but then, she tried to adhere the rules of journalism to me once, someone who assuredly has little respect for the profession as a profession. Still, better her than others...

Terrorism 100-years-ago: The Rider Named Death (2004) review

Indeed, the Russian film industry is not dead! Karen Shakhnazarov's take on the novel by Boris Savinkov, who could be equated with the main-character "Georges", is nearly flawless! Evoking Moscow during the 1905 Revolution, we are given access to the very secret world of a terrorist cell. It is unlikely--and Shakhnazarov's film illustrates this--that terrorism hasn't changed much at all, just some of the technologies.

From the lushness of Tsarist-circles, to the beggars in the alleys of Moscow, it's a vivid recreation of a time that is gone--and yet still alive with Chechen bombings in the heart of European Russia. The director notes astutely how minor acts of violence accumulate into a senseless bloodbath for its own sake.

The Revolution of 1917 (February by the Social Democrats, then October by the Bolsheviks) began what would be a civil war that didn't really end until Stalin's consolidation of power in the late-1930s. Tens-of-millions were murdered or died of starvation, and it all began with the Socialist Revolutionary Party--a party whose members included Lenin, Stalin, and "Georges."

Shakhnazarov's eye for composition is wonderful, and there are sweeping crane-shots, dollies, and static ones that would make Ozu proud. Most importantly, however, are the close-shots that capture the intimacy of the cell and its inhabitants. Georges dominance (and distance) over his cadre is made clear in every scene the character inhabits. Much of the history of Russian film is on-display here and it is breathtaking.

As part of the Socialist Revolutionary Party's underground, Georges and his cell anticipate Bolshevik terror and a complete surrender to nihilism and a worship of power that was common to that period. This nihilistic philosophy is most evident in cell leader Georges, with gradations in the members of the cell--yet they all yearn for some transcendence in revolutionary suicide. They all share an obsession with Georges and with death itself. Ultimately, Georges represents the human personification of death.

While his compatriots have their own very personal reasons for joining the cause of terrorizing the aristocracy, Georges appears to have no other reason for directing his terror attacks than a desire to kill and to stir Russian society towards...what? Even Georges seems to be unsure why he does what he does, and he doesn't care upon reflection of this fact. That is not an uncommon feeling for terrorists and insurgents, as the Weather Underground sometimes displayed during the late-1960s and early-1970s at times (it should be noted that the Weathermen were just one-of-many groups during the Vietnam war who bombed government buildings, there were thousands of incidents).

But unlike Savinkov and his co-conspirators, the Weathermen never targeted people for death, only property was to be destroyed to weaken an illegal and genocidal war in Southeast Asia. International examples are almost endless.

In-short, a cell leader is responsible for harnessing all these different reasons for why these individuals have "come to the cause." He channels these various agendas towards a few fundamental goals: the destruction of other human beings for some abstract ideology, some abstract end, and the instilling of terror and fear in a population for political ends. There are so many powerful moments in this film which convey these aspects of terrorism that you really must watch it carefully to appreciate the scope of what it's saying, making it an allegory, and one based-on Savinkov's real life experiences. Very few thrillers are this tense, this precise and studied.

There is a very sad poetry here that speaks-directly to the issues facing our own tortured era.

From the rapid-editing in the assassination attempt scenes, to the incredible atmosphere in the making of the bombs, we're treated to the best of Russian cinema. It appears that no-expense was spared in the recreation of early-1900s Tsarist Russia, down to the beggars and the filthy-streets, the uniforms of the Russian Gendarmes ("Отдельный корпус жандармов"). The acting is also of the highest order here, and the sumptuousness of Tsarist physical culture is breathtaking.

It's criminal that this film was not nominated for an MPAA award for Best Foreign Film, it's completely absurd. Without the DVD release by Kino in North America, would we even know it exists? Likely, this was the best-film of all of 2004!

Very few outside of the Slavic-speaking world know about Boris Savinkov and his exploits. There were once some English-language editions of the novel he wrote that was the basis of this great film. It's time to understand the phenomena of terrorism more fully: its genesis, its cultural contexts, and the individual agendas and motivations that spur those peopling its ranks into action. Usually, it's to right a perceived wrong.

The roots, then, of most terrorism, come from injustices committed by the powerful. Savinkov and his cohorts in the SR were hardly the only guilty parties, and they exist in a netherworld where switching sides is a formality. The motivations have a rational-basis, yet murder and death become the final goal and the end-result.

Savinkov was thrown from a window (defenstration) by his Bolshevik interrogators in 1925, crashing onto the cobblestone pavement below. His goal was accomplished: he was dead, and Russia was in ruins, to his eternal shame.

Three centuries of Tsarist oppression, indifference to the plight of the average person, and the devastation of WWI (Russia lost to Germany), gave would-be revolutionaries all the tinder they needed to create a new conflagration. Savinkov and the Bolsheviks were the spark. Russia burned throughout the entire 20th century. Shakhnazarov gives us the weight of Russian and human history in one film. The ultimate source of terrorism--then--is the State and the power backing it. For power, nothing succeeds like failure.

Revised 11.17.2008

Venezuelan and Russian interests begin to intersect

"[The United States is confident that its own relations with Western Hemisphere countries] "will in no way be diminished by a few, aging Blackjack bombers visiting one of Latin America's few autocracies." --Sec. of State Condaleeza Rice on the imminent death of the Monroe Doctrine, Ap, 09.18.2008

Caracas, Venezuela--Blackjack, or Applejack? As a point of fact, the "Blackjack bomber" Tu-160 isn't as old as our still-operational B-52 bomber (deployed after 1952), having first been deployed in 1987. The Tu-160 was stationed in the Ukraine, and by its appearance, was a response to the development of the American B-1 bomber. One look at it tells you that it works and that it's a worthy weapons platform, Rice's overblown rhetoric aside.

It's only logical that a nation will begin arming itself because a neighboring country has been illegally invading and destabilizing other nations and has become interventionist again, and that's exactly what Venezuela and Russia are doing these days. They aren't alone in this.

Iran and China are also entering into economic relations and blocs with nations like Venezuela. With American military aggression under the administration of George W. Bush and the last few sessions of Congress at a fever pitch, who could blame any nation for a defense buildup? The American press, of course:

Russia's economic influence is clearly expanding in the Americas. Bolivia announced Thursday that it would sign an oil and natural gas exploration deal with Gazprom. Terms of the deal weren't immediately disclosed.
And Sechin announced that five of Russia's biggest oil companies are looking to form a consortium to increase Latin American operations. State-controlled Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, Surgutneftegaz and TNK-BP hope to build a US$6.5 billion refinery to process Venezuela's tar-like heavy crude, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported. ("Venezuela-Russia ties deepen despite US pressure," AP, 09.18.2008)

Your point? The community of nations has good reason to think that such interventionism will not end with the Bush administration, even with a "President Obama." There are numerous historical precedents in American foreign policy history to believe this, and it has its beginnings in the years before our first great expansion westward.

In his December, 2nd, 1823 speech to the Congress, President James Monroe enunciated the three tenets of what would become known as the Monroe Doctrine, still an inherent-part of the State Department's doctrine towards the Western Hemisphere.

As anyone but Sarah Palin knows, this has meant--in practice--that the United States considers this hemisphere as its own backyard to do with as it will, high flown rhetoric aside. But Monroe wasn't exactly being coy about it. That's because he didn't have to be euphemistic at the time he made his comments. Attitudes have changed some since then, though not in ruling circles, and today the interventionism and the meddling has to be sold to the public in a softer, gentler tone, especially when they're in no mood for yet another intervention at their expense.

Like all land-grabs, it didn't take much for the Monroe Doctrine to embolden immigrants and pioneers to begin streaming as never before past the Appalachians. We can romanticize these folks all we want, but it was all fundamentally illegal and transgressive. In that same 19th century spirit, we look at Venezuela and Bolivia as part of our back yard, just as we still do with Cuba, Haiti, and the rest of this hemisphere. This is finally eroding, but are we are entering a new Imperial age with different players? My own hunch is no, at least in the case of Russia in this region, if not around the Caucasus mountains. However, that part of the world is of great interest to the State Department.
 

The Putin regime shows more of a tendency at reconstituting the traditional Russian Empire, not the global-wide interventionism of the American State Department. At this point, there is no "Putin Corollary" or a "Putin Doctrine" other than this reconstitution. The record of American foreign policy in this era is interventionist in a way that has no corollary currently.

As Sarah Palin should have known, the Bush Doctrine after late-2002 is to preemptively strike nations deemed a threat by our government, namely decided within the executive branch. This isn't very different from the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine of 1904, where the 26th president expanded the original doctrine to interventionism.

You don't need a Bush Doctrine in South America, invading Venezuela has already been covered withing the bureaucracy for over 100 years. Roosevelt wrote:

All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may lead the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

Of course, it was all rhetorical rubbish. We wanted our own sphere of influence rather than to spread democracy in throughout the domains of the old empires. At that time, we'd been meddling in Cuba, Venezuela, the Caribbean, and much of the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Once "the apple had dropped from the tree" of European influence, we went right for it, and boldly in the Spanish-American War. Untold atrocities were committed in the name of American Enterprise and Manifest Destiny that are continuing into the present.

But the rhetoric isn't all that different today: we're just always just trying to bring freedom to others, the American lot and "the white man's burden" of spreading a Westernized commerce and civilization. This might have washed with people in other countries 100 years ago as the old European colonial system was disintegrating, but it's laughable today, and why Venezuela and Russia are conducting some very pointed commerce of their own.

Rice's comments on Russian weapons platforms is telling, and can be viewed as a kind of commercial for American weapons contractors. Russia and China are now becoming very competitive at the arms trade, but anyone with even a little knowledge understands that the efficiency of the Ak-47 and the RPG is in how cheap and effective they are on the battlefield against more sophisticated and expensive weaponry. Over a year ago, Venezuela purchased 100,000 Kalashnikovs and is being aided by Russia in constructing a plant to manufacture more of them in the next few years.

These types of cheap and low-tech systems have kept us on our toes in Southeast Asia, Africa, Iraq, and everywhere else America has intervened. War brings-out an untapped ingenuity possible under no other circumstances. The Improvised Explosive Device (IED) is a startling example of this, and there have even been examples of exotic weaponry (gold-tipped RPGs) and tactics are being field-tested successfully against the American war machine in the Middle East.

Then, I have to look back at Rice's comments regarding Russian weapons systems: we have a strange way of combining our commercial culture with our political one. We sell expensive-junk weaponry, which is why you have to ply those representatives with so many gifts, meals, drinks, drugs, and women, that they say uncle and give-in to the demands of the war-profiteering sector. So does the press. Why else would be hearing endless stories about the Litvinenko affair, the so-called unilateral "invasion of Georgia," and-so-on. Our crimes simply don't exist. It doesn't matter.

None of this affects the reality on the ground very much these days (just ask the Treasury Secretary), and it's one where the guns are now being pointed-back, a lesson we're trying not to learn from 9/11. We've been bad, so very bad, and the check is coming due. Nations have a right to defend themselves, and we're the initiators of a new arms race. It's our fault, and a few decades of isolationism and a military drawdown would do us a lot of good.

The Roosevelt Corollary (1904): http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trmdcorollary.html

"Venezuela-Russia ties deepen despite US pressure," AP, 09.18.2008: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20080918/48d1d240_3ca6_1552620080918-1991993179

The Tupelov-160: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/bomber/tu-160.htm