As promised, here is a short report on what took place today in Moscow. First, let’s see what the BBC had to say:
The caption is priceless!! Turns out that some heroic freedom fighter & “activist” called Katz is *secretly* filming the protest to get his own crowd count. I did not find the count, but I am sure that it must run in the millions.
But, seriously, is the BBC not aware that Moscow must have the highest ratio of cellphone/human in the world, and that all these cellphones have rather decent cameras. What is the point of ‘secretly’ filming an event which is openly filmed by all its participants?
Actually, the Russian cops did something rather smart this time. They send a helicopter up in the air who was broadcasting video and images live on the Internet. Here is such a picture:
And just to be clear, of the various pictures offered, I chose the one with most people on it.
Also, for the fullness of the picture, here is an official RIA-Novosti picture:
I would say that our freedom-loving Katz need not have worried about the demonstrations not being filmed, wouldn’t you say?
Lastly, here is a TV report from one of the main channels about today’s demonstrations: (no need to understand Russian, its all rather clear)
Bottom line – there was not even a hint of suppression in the “Kremlin controlled media” and the demonstrations were amply covered.
How many people showed up? The cops say that the numbers began at 15’000, then swelled to about 18’000 during the march, then down to 10’000 due to rain at the concert. One Eltsenoid spoke of 100’000, and another of 200’000. We do know that the march organizers called the march the “March of the Millions”, but that they scheduled it for 50’000. My best guess is that the figures must have oscillated between 15’000-25’000 max.
The Western corporate media had predicted a massive turnout in protest against the laws against riots recently passed (increase of fines) and against yesterday’s searches. As far as I can tell, today’s demonstrations were either on par or a tad larger than the ones on May 6th. In other words, this was a non-event.
To recap: in a city of 10’000’000 (ten million) people, a demonstration bringing together pro-US liberals, communists, monarchists, homosexuals, anti-corruption protesters, ecologists, Stalinists, Fascists, Nationalists and any other type of discontents brought out well less than 50’000 people even though it took place on a major national holiday, in perfect weather, and with the full authorization of the authorities.
In other words, this was a non-event, Mr. Katz notwithstanding.
The Saker
I don’t know if you are a Ron Paul supporter but what do make of Rand Paul endorsing Mick Romney?
Christopher Walkan’s comment on Rand’s endorsement. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFKylgGk73I
@jack:I don’t know if you are a Ron Paul supporter
LOL, I am not sure how to answer that one.
One one hand, yes, definitely. I like the man, and I have a great deal of respect for him. I also like his stance on foreign policy. A few years ago I even send him some money, something I had never done in my life.
On the other, I find all this ‘Austrian’ anarcho-libertarianism total crap. Talk about a pipe dream! This crap about a “free market” society is every bit as detached from reality as Communism, and it sounds equally attractive until you involved the real world. Bottom line: ALL markets, absolutely ALL, markets are regulated by somebody and there is no such thing as a free market, never was, never will be.
Frankly, I agree with Tarpley (whom I usually dislike) when he says that the Ron Paul fans are tools in the hands of the Koch brothers and the rest of the US plutocracy. He even points out – correctly – that some top Bilderbergers are now pouring money into the Ron Paul movement…
As for Rand Paul, he is a total piece of shit and, I suspect, an embarrassment for his father. That he would support Romney is just so typical for that sorry creep…
I don’t think that it can be argued any more that there is anything halfway decent left in the Republican Party. Not after this:
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2012/04/ron-paul-sells-out-to-zionist-lobby.html
Not that I find the Democrats any better.
So, frankly, anybody still linked in any way, manner or fashion with the Republicrats or the Demolicans needs to immediately leave these two dens of absolute iniquity. And it sure looks to me that the neither Rand nor Ron Paul have any such plans.
The conclusion is obvious, at least for me.
Cheers! :-)
Somebody, I can’t remember who, said that all economies are planned. For government to relinquish this role in the name of free markets leaves it in the hands of banks.
Arguably market fundamentalism has the potential to cause as much misery as the Communist horror. Allowing corporations to price vital medicine out of the reach of Africans is just one example.
As for Ron Paul excellent on civil liberties and foreign policy bad news on everything else.
@Robert:Somebody, I can’t remember who, said that all economies are planned.
iirc it was Michael Hudson (my favorite economist)
@VINEYARDSHAKER
“Bottom line: ALL markets, absolutely ALL, markets are regulated by somebody and there is no such thing as a free market, never was, never will be.”
I am a bit confused as to what the Libertarians actually think and what people attribute to them as I don’t think they just want corporations to control everything and the state essentially ceases to function as an independent entity after all they are the ones who want to nationalise the state banking system that is run by international private banks and are against the industrial military complex expanding its influence domestically and abroad with spy drones, TSA, etc.
@Robert
“Arguably market fundamentalism has the potential to cause as much misery as the Communist horror. Allowing corporations to price vital medicine out of the reach of Africans is just one example.”
Libertarians covered that question with Milton Freidman’s The Pencil that I can’t find the YouTube clip with animations that describe the process.
Basically when you open up markets to competition and don’t have government bureaucratic red tape hampering the process manufacturing is streamlined and overall costs are cheap that is why a pencil is dirt cheap despite having a serious of different processes in different parts of the world from extraction of the components used in the pencil to it’s actually construction.
With Africa like what Brazil is doing with HIV drugs they could develop there own domestic pharmaceutical companies and patent there own cheap brand of drugs.
Free market means that it opens up competition so you don’t have monopolies dominating certain industries at least in theory.
A good example is the internet when it initially started here in Britain in the mid 90’s. There was only 1 internet service provider AOL and it cost a pound an hour. It wasn’t until other IP providers started that the internet really became affordable. The first one I used was Freeserve.
Personally I think we should do away with humans in the manufacturing industry and switch to automation where machines will do most of the manufacturing jobs through development of IT and advances in computing that Russia should invest in and develop.
@jack:I am a bit confused as to what the Libertarians actually think
Well, just like the Marxists had many schools of thought, so do the Libertarians. But I think that it would be fair to say that they all oppose what they call “statism” and that they all believe that the Free Market does a better job maximizing welfare than a regulated one. Just like Marxism can be a very effective and accurate critique of capitalism, so can Libertarianism (?) be a very good tool to show, for example, that the current US economy is far more state controlled then private. So just like the Marxists, Libertarians do make a lot of good points. The problem with these two schools of thought is double:
a) they are both based on fundamentally utopian premises
b) they are both materialists in the worst sense of the word: no right or wrong, no ethics.
My own politics are far, FAR more in line with socialist/welfare ideas, at least in terms of economics, and I also happen to agree with Gilad Atzmon when he says that the way out of the current global disaster is to *return to ethics*. Pure materialism, of whatever kind, has been an unmitigated disaster for all of mankind and ethnics need to be re-injected into the political discourse.
If you are interested in my views on the issue of the role of the state, you can check out this post: http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2012/02/distributism-first-impressions.html and the comments/discussion under it.
Cheers :-)