The Russians should hate their state, their authorities, and then Russia will sink into chaos and become weaker. It seems the Russians had to develop an antidote against such a primitive approach.
original text by Petr Akopov
translated for the Saker blog by Olga
source: https://m.vz.ru/opinions/2021/1/20/1080946.html
Among the loud and quite predictable campaign in the West in response to detention of Alexei Navalny – with declaring him a “prisoner of conscience”, demands to free him immediately b threats of sanctions – the most indicative is this one: “Kremlin attacks on Navalny is not simply violation of human rights? It’s an insult of the people of Russia, who want their voice to be heard/
This is the statement by Jack Sallivan who becomes an advisor on national security for POTUS. This is the core of Western policy towards Russia.
Here is what they sell us: “friends of Russian people” (the most russophobic-minded western politicians always specify that their claims are not to the people, but to the authorities, and the poor people moan under the yoke of authorities) want to convince the people of Russia that they give them a helping hand. It’s not necessary to be an expert in history in relationships between Russia and the West, not necessary even to know Russian history to see this endlessly repeated approach – “tyranny regime” in Russia is dangerous for the world and its own citizens and is seeking to suppress all neighbouring people and oppresses its own people, only true heroes challenge it, so the West helps them with all means in their hard but noble struggle/
This is such a stable structure that it doesn’t change for many centuries. And it is considering that during the last 104 years in Russia there were three absolutely different forms of government and ideological patterns of power. That is to believe that Russian authorities threatened the world and its own people under the tzars, under bolshevics and under Putin the person should be either typical russophobe or typical idiot.
We won’t remind the times of Ivan Groznyi or Peter the Great – at that time they also tried to frighten the children but media and communications didn’t allow to address to “suffering Russian people” directly. However, the last two hundred years they apply this very pattern – “Russian authorities do not express the opinion of the people, so we will speak on his behalf” – we mean the West.
Yes, the is here because nor Herzen, nor Lenin, nor white immigrants, nor Solzhenitsyn were of any interest for our western “friends”. That is their real views, aspirations, struggles, tosses, and searches – all of it is just the pretext to confirm the simple propaganda thesis: the authorities in Russia have nothing to do with people, the power is a tyrany and it’s occupational that’s why the people should (no – they dream of!) to overthrow it and we’ll help them with the best of our abilities. All this structure serves absolutely pragmatic geopolitical interests of deterrence or even submission of Russia. That’s why the help to Russian people in its nature always turns out to be a military intervention and sometimes is limited to information war.
Russians should hate their authorities, their state (even better – their history). And then Russia will sink in unrest and become weaker. It seems Russians should develop an antidote against such a primitive method long ago. But there is a problem – one of the main our qualities is very strong self-reflection, empathy, doubt in everything and everybody. Together with our civilizational pursuit of justice it makes us exceptionally trusting nation. It isn’t gullibility of fools. It is trustfullness of honest people searching for truth and considering every person who speaks about fairness to be an honest and good man.
Many times it backfired us, but the main deterring factor was always the same – reasonable and responsible authorities. Though only till the moment when in authority and elite in general there was no critical mass (not the majority, even some minority) of people who had no experience of working through the consequences of imposing “starry-eyed dreams”. Then there happened a division during which the most irresponsible and adventurous part of elite took over speculating on people’s aspirations. The country fell into unrest, division and nearly perished.
But how much the West loved and praised it! What praises to “people’s authority” were sung by the “friends of Russian people” – both after February 1917 and August-December 1991. At last Russian people threw off the tzar (communist) yoke, at last the best people came to power! Now Russia will become a part of civilized world which gladly will hold it in its arms!
These were the moments when Russia fell apart and perished and its geopolitical rivals divided it into spheres of influence and bought its treasures cheap. But when Russia began to restore that very moment it was declared a threat to humanity and its authorities were claimed tyranny and anti-popular. This fairy tale is old enough – it’s time to repeat it?
I think there is a quality of Orientalism to U.S. criticism of Russia. The U.S. used to claim to be better then the Soviets because we don’t torture, and we have freedom of speech, but that pretense is gone these days. What is left seems to be to claim moral superiority because we defend homosexual rights.
I came across an essay today that makes a similar point to Akopov above:
https://www.stalkerzone.org/which-16-countries-sent-diplomats-to-navalnys-trial/
I think I suffer from dyslexia in my old age.
I read about the U.S. condemnation of the the Russian Federation from the western media mouth organs concerning Alexei Navalny’s lawful conviction, something frightening happens. My brain switches the letters in Navalny’s name around and it comes out, “Julian Assange.”
“Prisoner of conscience” come out Julian Assange..
“Human rights violation” comes out Julian Assange.
“”Political disagreement is never a crime. We call for his immediate release,” comes out Julian Assange.
Am I going mad? Maybe I need to “circle back” and give this phenomena deeper thought. :)
The Lens Of Hypocrisy
From Kookiepedia, the Twee Encyclopaedia
The Lens of Hypocrisy is a creation of the MI6/CIA Laboratories in Newyorktimes, BBCNNistan, which is meant to protect viewers and/or readers from an overdose of facts and truth which might be harmful for them. Facts and truth are addictive and tend to lead those exposed to them into doubting regime change colour revolution attempts, oppose imperialist wars of aggression, and condemn the murder of children by drone strikes. In order to protect them the Lens of Hypocrisy is designed to be placed firmly between facts and truth and the audience.
Design:
The Lens of Hypocrisy works by twisting all facts and truth by 180°, so that, for instance, a blood soaked war criminal who spent eight years bombing seven countries every three minutes is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, an American instigated Nazi coup in Ukraine becomes a “Russian invasion”, Syria defending against a horde of jihadi cannibal headchoppers becomes “Assad gassing his own people”, a piece of Guano who didn’t even stand for election is the “legitimate president of Venezuela”, and a racist Quisling with a sub-2% approval rating is “Putin greatest opponent”.
Criticism:
It is noted that the lens is not large enough; individuals who move far enough to the left, or even sometimes to the right, receive an overwhelming exposure to reality. Such individuals become almost irredeemably unbrainwashed and potentially Russian bots, trolls, and puppets of Putin. At this time efforts are being urgently made by the Twittergoogle Laboratory in Zuckerbergistan to deal with this problem.
To Poke The Truth
You said it all, very succinctly. Bravo! The ignorance of the masses, especially in USA, is staggering. The brainwashing there and in EU has been non-stop and quite successful – by the same owners of the same MSM.
Until that continues, there is no hope for this “western” population; add Australia, NZ and Japan into that cauldrum for cooking brains. They will be perpetually enslaved. The truth tellers are criminalised now and the facts/truth is stricly verbotten! The World is fast descending into the abyss of lies, more lies and propaganda. How long this can last is the big question. I am not holding much hope for the Americans – I think they have crossed the Rubicon of non-return to normality and common sence, now they are well past it. Decades of rabid propaganda, manipulated so-called “education” and indoctrination has worked well for the Cabal. Produced generations of totally disfunctional creatures that cannot even communicate cohesevely. Is that our future?!
I shudder to think that is what awaits us – these who still possess functioning brains. I am trying to be optimistic and have some hope, but sometimes my resolve is diminished and I simply wonder how some dumb, delusional fu***r from so-called “Strategic Command” can espouse the use of nuclear weapons agains Russia and the rest of Americans don’t even bother to notice it!!! He is talking about THEIR own extermination! What would it take?!
All I can think of is that one day they will be victims of their own success.
hi, Katerina, the USA society is beyond repair. have a look at their history, never the common good was an issue, a political “accomplishment”. their “genetics” is utterly individualistically selfish: the more they talk community & the less they use it.
Because it’s all smoke and mirrors like the old shell game which shell is the pea hid under but wait it’s in my pocket and the American people will fall for it every time. Is there hope for America little to none for sex drugs and booze is their pastimes, there are few decent paying jobs and those who employee others are determined to see that it remains that way, Americans really don’t care about those living in poverty or the homeless all they care about are themselves that’s why it was so easy to for the government to take control, and you ain’t seen nothing yet for it’s going to get a lot worse.!!!
Bravo for the comment!
This is how west lost any moral superiority, which they never had in first place. Westerners had moral because others had less in the eyes of spectators. Now, when westerners are put in same situation as their previous “enemies”, we can see their “moral standings”. Julian is one of them.
Assange and Wikileaks are, were and always will be western intelligence assets. Wikileaks was established as a honeypot in an attempt to head off the possibility of future revelations such as those that came out of Abu Ghraib. It has never revealed anything of real importance that was not already known. The collateral murder video, its flagship revelation, simply shows us the tragic and deadly consequences of mistaken identity, the ‘fog of war’, that happen all the time in war zones. If Assange is such a threat, why is he still alive? After all, it was easy enough to get rid of Mehdi Ben Barka, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Salvador Allende, Aldo Moro, Oscar Romero, Daphne Galizia, etc, etc, etc. If Wikileaks is such a threat, why is it still active, more than a decade after its establishment?
As far as I know Assange refused to seek shelter in the Russian embassy in Londonistan, settling for that of Ecuador.
There is something a little fishy about this.
Actually, what is needed is a trenchant spreading of the truth about Western ‘leaders’.
1. They hate their people – they deliberately organise wars for their poor people to die in overseas – they’ve been doing it for centuries.
2. They hate honesty and hard work – that’s why they spend so much time destroying investment vehicles that ordinary people put their money into. You know: building societies (US folks call them thrifts); endowment policies; interest rates in simple savings accounts.
3. Everything is about the swindle and corruption – just look at the UK Government post March 2020 – corruption on a scale unrivalled in 200 years.
4. They hate democracy asserting itself – think Brexit, think Scottish Independence, think the US Presidential elections in 2000, 2004, 2020.
5. They want to impose disgustingly unhealthy food on their people to make them ill so they have to spend loads on medicines.
6. They think poisoning people slowly is the price worth paying to ensue corporate profits for the few.
You can make the list go on a very, very long way.
It isn’t hateful to say this about one’s own country. It is the necessary prelude to long overdue change.
Calling truth tellers disloyal is the oldest form of treason in the book. It is always the act of criminals thinking they should stay in power.
I’d love to see Putin, Xi and dozens of others telling the Western Leaders in a very, very public forum just what kind of monsters they actually are….
And I’d love to see adverts all over the US saying: ‘You’ll never read any truth in US media outlets: come to XXXXX and enjoy a new experience…’
hi, Rhys, all your points, above mentioned, are true, but they are the “effects” of a discreet & not so hidden cause which goes as follows: they want to preserve the power of their “chosen” money, the printed fiat money, aka the USA Dollar. the day they sacrificed Kennedy, after Lincoln, by contracting the divine wedlock between “chosen” money & the US gunpowder, the basic paradigm was established & carries on, nowadays, & extended to the rest of humanity.
I remember on Fakebook several years ago, this was circa 2015 (I deleted my account in disgust in late 2017) coming across some Brutish woman ranting against Russia. I asked her if she’d ever been to Russia. She said of course not, she would never go there, what she read in the media was enough to let her know what it was like. I said I was sure Mother Russia would somehow manage to get along without her and exited the conversation.
Yes, the West uses also trustfulness of anybody, not just the Russians. The Ukrainians, the Europeans, all of them, the canadians, and of course the americans themselves.
”It’s not necessary to be an ‘expert’ in history in relationships between Russia and the West”, but it helps knowing some historical facts.
To wit, the existence of a ‘Society of Friends of Russian Freedom’ founded in England in 1890 and in America in 1891 (SAFRF), by members of the Narodnaya Volya and anarchists, and enthusiastically and materially supported by members of the British and American ‘elites’. Its goal was anti-tsarist revolutionary propaganda in Russia and the ‘West’. The themes were the same ‘Russian people stupid, brutish drunkards’ reduced to this state by a greedy, tyrannical, but ultimately incompetent oligarchic coterie which must be exterminated and replaced by the ‘will of the people’ guided by the beacons of the ‘Lighthouse on the hill’.
It didn’t get much traction initially, but ”In 1903 the suffragist activist Alice Stone Blackwell reorganized the SAFRF. An Indiana politician William Dudley Foulke became president. The society organized the propagandist campaign of the Russian émigré Breshko-Breskovskaia in 1904-1905 in the USA. George Kennan, revealed in the New York Times on 24 March 1917, that Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb Bank on Wall Street financed Russian revolutionaries through this organization. Schiff had been financing Russian revolutionaries since 1905”.
Jacob Schiff anti-Russian, Adam Schiff anti-Russian. They don’t make any secret.
Completely disagree with this conclusion.
It is more likely that this current charade is in support of Putin than an attack on him. As Putin says, this stuff is largely designed for internal consumption only, and we do see that here, we see the planet marching to the same drumbeat, so maybe this is merely to keep the lockstep. It would be foolish to overlook the hatred for Russian Orthodox, but at this time the Russians are wholly on board with the new program, both Orthodox and not —there is some global plot afoot, and apparently everyone is in on it, including the Russian government and their church, and so this Navalny lameness just leaves the sheeple guessing.
“Kremlin attacks on Navalny is not simply violation of human rights? It’s an insult of the people of Russia, who want their voice to be heard”.
Well now, this little piece of second rate Western propaganda needs a correction: The mere fact that the West wants people in Russia to accept a two bit blogger and embezzler as their leader is the real insult to the people of Russia, and not the first narrative. However, the Western centers of power are incapable of understanding this.
The West has always had trouble understanding the Russian mind, because it cannot understand Russian culture, which is more than 2.000 years old, and heavily influenced by the Orthodox Church. Everything centers around that unfortunate period when Russia fell under the control of the Mongols, which in the West created the impression that Russian culture, as a result, deteriorated in quality, which was not the case, although Russia did stagnate technologically. Russia is huge, and the bulk of the Mongol Army was outside Russia, pursuing conquests. Even so, this negative impression of Russia persists (one amusing aspect of this attitude is that when Peter the Great came to Western Europe, he and his party were shocked that people in the West smelled so badly, as they took no baths. The Russians, on the other hand, accepted the sauna, introduced to Russia by Swedish Vikings, which they renamed the “banya”).
Before the Mongol conquest, Russia had contacts with Central and Western Europe. After the Mongol conquests, these contacts were resumed, with Russia wanting to catch up with what it lost, with Peter the Great personally coming to Western Europe and examining Western achievements. This in turn led to the creation of two schools of thought in Russia, the “Westerners” and “Easterners”. The “Westerners” held the view that Western culture and achievements were superior to Russian, while the Easterners thought the opposite, although they were prepared to accept some Western values and achievements. Western centers of power, of course, exploited these divisions, backing the “Westerners”, a policy we still have today with Russian liberals. Big mistake. Western centers of power forgot about the Russian people, who were incapable of rescinding their cultural values. Not only that, but today you have many Russians who are outraged by Western attitudes towards Russia and it’s people.
So, what will the future bring ? In the short run, nothing good I am afraid. When Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State, she openly stated that she saw no reason why Russia should be so huge and possess all that natural wealth, which does “not” belong to Russia but to the world (!!!). This gangster style attitude is nothing new, and it began in the 13th century, when Alexander Nevsky defeated the German knights, who were backed by the Vatican. How many times was Russia invaded ? Why ? Who payed for Napoleons invasion, for Kaisers invasion, and for Hitlers invasion ? Western bankers perhaps ? And of course, we must not forget Lenin and the “revolution” of 1917, payed for by Wall Street bankers.
In 1904 Halford Mackinder, the well known English geographer, formulated the “Heartland Theory”, which pointed to the importance of Euro-Asia, namely Russia and China. What this means is that he who controls Euro-Asia, has the chief political and economic influence in the world. This Theory has become the basis of anti-Russian and anti-Chinese policy initiatives of the West. It is still present. The 2014 coup d’etat against Yanukovich was an attempt to drag Ukraine into the EU and NATO and place NATO troops and missile systems right along the Russian border. After that Russia would be destabilized, and Moscow would be given an ultimatum: Surrender or perish. Upon surrendering, NATO troops would march into Russia in order to introduce “democracy” and protect “human rights”, and of course place Russian missile systems under their control. After that Russia would be broken up in the name of “democracy”. As the late political economist Lyndon LaRouche stated, nothing can save the US dollar than the plunder of Siberia and the Caspian region.
Unfortunately for Western bankers and NATO, nothing of the mentioned happened. Putin reunited Crimea with Russia (big shock for NATO, which was after Sevastopol), the Donbass republics were created, and a chain reaction was started inside Ukraine, which is heading for dissipation, with at least 75 % of it inevitably reuniting with Russia. The West forgot that the original Russian state was centered in Kiev, being known as “Rus”, and not as “Kievian Rus”, a little fabrication of Western historians. On top of that Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians, just like Russians. I wonder how many times Putin laughed when that coup d’etat in 2014 was instigated, as things are slowly going Russia’s way.
Finally, we have the question of Joe Biden. He was placed into the White House after the neocons pulled a soft coup d’etat against Trump. The intent was for the neocons to fully control the White House and US Government and to restore neocon foreign policies, namely more aggression in the form of coup d’etats, color revolutions and outright military invasions. Big mistake. Instead of going forward and accepting changes which are happening in the world, the neocons are going backwards with more imperial aggression. This will inevitably lead to increased anti-American feelings in the world and a general change of course towards the East, Russia and China. The neocons will, of course, fight this, and we shall see if they will be foolish enough to provoke a wider war, an old bankers trick when facing difficulties.
The same “west” wanted
1. Iranians to accept a zionist stooge as “shah” in 1953
2. Iraqis to accept a convicted criminal and longtime fugitive, Ahmed Chalabi, as “leader” in 2003
3. Ukrainians to accept a zionist banker, Yatsenyuk, as “prime minister” in 2014
4. Venezuelans to accept a “politician ” who be Dr stood for election as “president” in 2018.
So what’s new?
Thank you BF. Although these are well known facts, they are deliberately obfuscated by, say, ‘zapadniki’ and must be constantly reminded.
And yes, ‘banya’ is a Russian national institution. Cleanliness is next to godliness! But I would tend to believe that there were not necessarily the Varangians who introduced it, it resembles too much with the Roman bath. I tend to believe the Primary Chronicle:
”He [Apostle Andrey] then reached the Slaviani at the point where Novgorod is now situated. He saw these people existing according to their customs, and on observing how they bathed and scrubbed themselves, he wondered at them. He went thence among the Varangians and came to Rome, where he recounted what he had learned and observed. “Wondrous to relate,” said he, “I saw the land of the Slaviani, and while I was among them, I noticed their wooden bathhouses. They warm them to extreme heat, then undress, and after anointing themselves with an acid liquid, they take young branches and lash their bodies. They actually lash themselves so violently that they barely escape alive. Then they drench themselves with cold water, and thus are revived. They think nothing of doing this every day, and though tormented by none, they actually inflict such voluntary torture upon themselves. Indeed, they make of the act not a mere washing but a veritable torment (actually the term is ‘muchenie’).” When his hearers learned this fact, they marveled. But Andrew, after his stay in Rome, returned to Sinope”.
Good solid Russian history grafted into the Navalny controversy, helping this vast country’s people keep on track, whose natural wealth does “not” belong to Russia but to the world” (Madeleine Albright)
Where did she get that idea from? Russia’s physical resources belong to Russia, but her even greater spiritual resources belong in the distant future to the world.
All invasions, wars, controversies lead back to this fact, which stands so powerfully against the designs of western agendas. All the rhetoric, propaganda, smearing lies attest to this.
The wealth of cultural and spiritual history attest to the spiritual values and the fight against evil also, at heart, a spiritually clean, bright people !
“It is trustfullness of honest people searching for truth and considering every person who speaks about fairness to be an honest and good man”. This rings true for me. I was in Russia a couple of years ago and it is a fair (partial) description of many people whose company I enjoyed in St Petersburg, Moscow and Irkutsk. Thank you for the very heartfelt essay.
In the last 3 centuries or so, the West has been a Parasite to all peoples & lands of the World. They (west), have developed an array of tricks & techniques for use in their parasitic feasting of the World resources & peoples. The British empire lead the pack by skillful, deployment of these three tactics ; (1) Divide & conquer, (2) War, & (3)Mental slavery. The British succeeded in subjugating the whole world except Russia when it comes to War. Unfortunately for the Russians, the British believe they are a master race & domineering is their divine right, hence they have been deploying tactics 1 & 3 (above) on Russia for centuries, scoring several victories.
Russia is rich in resources & knows how to defend itself militarily, and history can attest to that. However, Russia suffers from “low self esteem” , as evidenced by lack of a clearly defined national identity, caring about opinion of others, and wanting to justify its own actions in front of others, and the elites always imitating their western counterparts. Russia has a culture of meritocracy hence its leadership are hardworking, educated & good cultured. This is a good thing by any logical standard, but the West is gangster land, which requires “streetwise” freaks. The Russian foreign service needs streetwise people to be able to reverse & defeat the west’s psychological onslaught. The key is that Russians must stop worshiping the West and realize they are on their own. As for Germany, Russia must remind it about 27 million Russians killed &
they must pay reparations for the WW2 damage before they can claim to care about Russian life.
To Agenda
Not so fast. Russians do not suffer from “low self esteem”, on the contrary, they value themselves quite highly and with good reasons. There is absolutely NO worshipping of the “west”. I would say the opposite is more appropriate – to Russians they are a laughing stock. Russian foreign service is the best in the World – professional, diplomatic and totally switched on. Showing up the sheer incompetence and mediocracy of the opponents. Couldn’t ask for a better one. The Russian President is as “streetwise” as they come. No-one can pull the wool over his eyes. So, please get this in perspective – there is no “However”! Russia is strong and getting stronger with each passing day. Cannot say the same about the so-called “west”..
@Russia suffers from “low self esteem”
‘West’ suffers from exaggerated self esteem, the sin of pride and vainglory ”the beginning of all deadly sins”.
Russians are endowed with the highest Christian virtue: ‘smireniye’, humility/humbleness/ meeknes ”the beginning and end of the virtues”.
”And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted”. ”Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth”. ”God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble”.
The proud hates the humble precisely because the humble doesn’t worship him. The proud hates the meek because the meek reminds him of his nothingness that he refuses to see.
Orientalism, as in ‘Oriental Despotism’. This is what we are dealing with. This business is as old as Aristotle and it has a structure which I’ll try to lay out in the following. But we should begin when the trope of ‘oriental despotism’ first made the rounds in early modern Europe as an ideological weapon to defame .. China. These characteristic orientalist slanders indeed target Russia but not only, also Turkey, Persia, and not least China. During the early decades of the 18th century China was the talk of the salons and excited the philosophes who enthusiastically cheered the doctrine of natural human goodness and the celebrated aristocracy of magistrates chosen openly on the basis of merit, a greatly admired government that presided over the most populous, peaceful, and productive nation on earth. One can hardly emphasis enough how threatening this was to the established order of Europe. There’s this term: enlightenment. Enlightenment was about China. What was understood about this country literally illuminated Europe as a whole and it looked as corrupt as it really was. Illumination.
Enter Montesquieu. He was the ideological leader of the old ‘nobility of the robe’ who hated the Sun King (who admired China). The China talk threatened Montesquieu and his entire class because the spectre of a aristocracy chosen on the basis of merit signalled the end of Montesquieu’s estate, it’s wealth and privileges. Big stuff. Montesquieu laboured his whole life attempting to overthrow this Sinophilia. Oriental despotism is his theory. What agitated him especially was the fact that most Asiatic monarchies did not permit great property owners to assume authoritative weight in the constitution (and soak up the rents and taxes of the kingdoms). The Turkish monarchy was ruled by Janissaries, who were slaves of the Sultan. In China the magistrates were drawn from the people, drew a wage and that was all. There were landowners but they had no influence as a class. What Montesquieu, and his brethren feared above all was a powerful king who could do what Asiatic monarchs had been doing since ancient times, preventing the landowners from becoming the destructive parasites of the realm that is the history of Europe and the ancient Mediterranean as well. The work of Michael Hudson on this matter is all important.
Oriental despotism is therefore always the spectre of a powerful monarchy, powerful enough to settle accounts with oligarchy, with authority. That is what they fear (they do not fear democracy; democratic leaders can be bought). And so they trumpet the paeans of Freedom, always the Western oligarchs sing the praises of freedom. The real meaning of freedom is freedom from monarchs who prevent them from subjecting the people to their depredations. When the cat’s away, the mice will play.
This notion of Oriental despotism has enjoyed enormous prestige in the modern west and is ever available as a rhetorical bludgeon to shake against any sort of threat to Western oligarchy. As Akopov observes, the Czar’s monarchy, the Bolshevik government and the recent Russian Federation have all been targeted with the exact same rhetoric of oriental despotism. The people suffer terribly under the burden of barbaric Asiatic power lust. Obviously they need the services of a White Knight to liberate them and provide a grateful population with the kind of government they really need. They made a great deal of headway in this matter back in the 90s but Putin came along and spoiled everything. Back then Russia was Westernising in a satisfactory way but then Putin made it oriental all over again.
What Putin did was draw a line in the sand. He said: ‘get as rich as you like, fine, but stay out of politics’. In Russia, there are no George Soros’ or Rockefellers. The term Russian oligarch is questionable. An oligarch is a rich maggot who rules. They have rich maggots, but they do not rule. Putin rules. And truly this celebrated statement on the part of President Putin really signifies three giant steps in the direction of longstanding Asiatic practices. Thank heavens. There’s something cat like about Putin, no?
The ‘old nobility’ in France was the ‘noblesse d’épée’/’noblesse de race’, ‘nobility of the sword, nobility of family’, whose nobility was based on their families’ traditional function as the knightly class and whose titles were usually attached to a particular feudal fiefdom, a landed estate held in return for military service.
The ‘Noblesse de robe’ was the ‘new nobility’, recruited from holders of a high state office, occupied initially through merit, irrespective of family, but becoming increasingly venal, offices being bought along with titles and estates and made hereditary. In other words bourgeois ‘upstarts’ from the wealthy merchant and financial milieux, but who were still denied some privileges of the ‘noblesse d’épée’. The ‘noblesse de robe’ was dependent on the salaries payed by the King and therefore voting always for the policies favored by the king (especially the royal absolutism and support of the Catholic Church) and was against the old aristocracy which had more independence, retaining a degree of influence in state affairs.
It could seem somehow paradoxical that a Montesquieu, from a long but not that ‘old’ lineage of ‘noblesse de robe’, became such a staunch adversary of absolutism, the guarantor of their privileges, if we wouldn’t know that he was a Free Mason, intimately associated with Huguenots (L’Esprit des Lois was published anonymously in Geneva and smuggled to France) and descendants of Sephardic Jews plus an admirer of the British Constitution.
Good heavens; my mistake. Montesquieu was indeed the ideological leader of the so called nobility but his was an old family of ‘the sword’ not ‘the robe’ who were considered upstarts. A slip on my part and so thanks for bringing it up. More: all of what you say is, as far as I understand, quite true (though monarchic veniality for public, not military offices, was an old practice). And yes the lower nobility tended to support the monarchy whereas the older knighthood aimed to guard their privileges – even though these houses had long since provided almost nothing in the way of military value to the kingdom. Montesquieu was well known as an admirer of the British constitution that had arisen after 1688, which we would come to term ‘constitutional monarchy’. That’s what Montesquieu wanted for France. The historical review was briefly gone over to make a point: Montesquieu made the world safe for oligarchy. In such a brief treatment it would have been laborious to go into definitions but here perhaps I should. Classical political philosophy fields a fundamental distinction between virtue and corruption. These can mean many things to many people but I take the view that it boils down to this: virtue means that the citizens sacrifice some degree of private interest for the sake of the public good and corruption is a condition where the public good is shorted for the sake of private gain. Very simple. It’s what we think it should mean. Perhaps I was unclear. I argued against oligarchy which is what the English order of things established and all of what came after it. Therefore I am indeed arguing for ‘absolutism’, an ideological term fielded by the propertied few intent on preserving their legal privileges to exploit the many. Again, Micheal Hudson’s arguments against rentiers is of the greatest importance. ‘Absolutism’ is a typically unsystematic and apolitical term heavy on spin, or as one says when playing billiards, ‘English’. Main point: if we seek to overcome oligarchy we must have recourse to monarchy. That’s certainly no guarantee (and it could make things worse, depending) but it’s important to make the point because the received wisdom is that the antidote to oligarchy is democracy. Sounds nice but then it never seems to work. There’s a reason for that. All revolutions that effectively cleared the decks of oligarchic forces were popular movements that were led by strong and purposeful leaders. ‘Populist’ as we say.
Montesquieu, a Free Mason. I didn’t know this but it should come as no surprise. Tis true that liberty was close to the man’s heart. Indeed he was known, or should we say notorious, for his nocturnal activities with the leading libertines of the time, which was immediately following the death of the Sun King, that most Catholic of kings. Once again: when the cat’s away, the mice will play. But anyway, thank you for your intelligent and informed comments and I’m sorry if some of the above come across as abrasive or pedantic.
The same thing could be said of North Atlaticistic stories and misinterpretations concerning China for the last 250 years. Albeight the Chinese have somewhat more sophisticated approaches to “Truth” and “Honesty” than those of the somewhat younger Russian and Byzantine tradition. A civilisatonal history some three times as old as that of Russia vouches for some differences. On the other hand, Britain and the US of North A have histories som one third or a quarter of the time depth of Russian history, and — at leased in the Case of North America — have gone from barbarism into decay without passing through the stage of becoming somewhat civilised,
The answer was given by Yury Apukhtin (1 Jan 2020):
“Part of society under the influence of liberal propaganda still loses its Russian identity, but it is impossible to recode the Russian civilisation code. The liberal value base based on private property and individualism did not become sacred in Russia. All of this suggests that the concept of the development of Russian civilisation in no way lies in the plane of integration with western civilisation, we are irreconcilable competitors with them and can develop only by competing with each other. Russia is one of the world civilisations that has withstood violent clashes with other civilisations, and its future is in independent development based on Russian civilisational values. ”
The idea that at the end everyone will become liberal and ” like American” is the most stupid western wet elitist dream. It won’t happen in Russia, China, many other great old eastern cultures, in Africa etc. Becoming liberal and “western” means the end of Russian soul and whole idea of Russia.
To Matias
Thank you Matias, for clearly understanding what most westerners seem to be unable to grasp. They measure Russia by what they know – the western yardstick which is wholly inappropriate when applied to Russia. As you astutely pointed out it is the entirely different “civilisational code” and subsequent different development, including values and morals. Yes, the 90-s were huge eye-opener for many in Russia, being pretty much isolated from the “west” for 75 years prior, the Russians simply assumed that people in the west are same – sane, normal people and it was only the communist regime that stood in the way of full and friendly cooperation. Little did they know!
Saying that, I still want to clarify that a lot of people in the west ARE sane and normal, what is abnormal is what is being done to them by totally corrupted so-called “education” system, uninhibited permissiveness and incessant brainwashing with vile lies and stupid propaganda, especially with regard to Russia. Few, thankfully, are begginning to see through all of that..
Nalvany is the perfect person the West would want to lead Russia. He is the kind of person who would sell his own family to make himself look good. And he would allow Western politics and businesses to come in and literally gang rape the country. Perfect for the US, who, in my opinion, is the Harvey Weinstein of the world stage.
I’m an American. For the love of God, don’t ever trust Americans. Our motto, ‘winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.’
And you coined the phrase: “Never give a sucker an even break”. Says everything you need to know.
If one wishes to read EU Borell blog written after his meeting with Lavrov
https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/92722/my-visit-moscow-and-future-eu-russia-relations_en
Talks about the N situation….Nemtsov….Belarus and Ukraine human rights territorial integrity etc etc of course yeah yeah yeah
Their position and pathetic attitude and how they believe they can continue to provoke and interfere
“…..The European Union can influence these developments, which requires a clear vision and objectives, accompanied by intense diplomatic engagement, supported by our many means of external action and projection of influence.”
Eg more sanctions……
No wonder Lavrov and Zakharova disgusted. Same old same old. Can EU actually ever admit to a reality that is different from their false illusion of self importance?
Indeed, the chutzpah of the collective ‘West’ is breathtaking and it shows a total and dangerous lack of ‘situational awareness’. They don’t see the ‘writing on the wall’: ‘God sent them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness’. They are nonredeemable. Time to quarantine them has come.
The lesson is for us: ”But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ”.