20 October 2012. Sergei Yolkin’s World. It’s Yet One More Election Day

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An election to choose the members of the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition is due on 20-21 October.

18 October 2012

Sergei Yolkin

RIA-Novosti

http://www.ria.ru/caricature/20121018/904160079.html

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20 October 2012. A Point to Ponder… Why is NATO Fighting in Asia When It’s a EUROPEAN Defence Bloc?

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The critics of the KPRF dismiss it as “a bunch of oldtimers; it’s just babas and dedes nostalgic for the USSR“. I don’t see many “grey heads” in the above image. A new generation is picking up the dream… and it’s a dream of CHRISTIAN Socialism. You see, both the Church and the Party learned harsh lessons from the Soviet period and the chaotic Nasty Nineties. The Party learnt that fighting God wasn’t a good move… the Church learnt humility and that Western Liberalism  (AKA “Conservatism”) wasn’t its friend. Yes, Virginia, there were GOOD results that came out of the repressions and the New Time of Troubles. The Left is sounding the alarm about NATO aggression and American hegemonism… and Russia‘s responding.

The only really well-organised and institutionalised Russian political bloc is the Communists… and they’re no longer atheistic by ideology. Once VVP‘s off the scene… I think that you can see what I see… Orwell‘s Neo-Bolshevism… with a CHRISTIAN grounding. Now, that’s something to look forward to…

BMD

McFaul at the Centre of Scandal

Russian caricature of Michael McFaul (1963- ), US Ambassador to Russia, drawn after McFaul colluded with opposition elements, and after he made inappropriate remarks in a public speech. The USA has NO right to lecture anyone else… not after the Easter bombing of Belgrade…

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Remarks made by US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul on 25 May to the students of the Higher School of Economics, during which he made several controversial statements about the Kremlin‘s position on several sensitive international issues, became a subject of discussion not only in Russia, but also in the foreign media. In particular, both Russian authorities and media outlets strongly reacted to his statement that Russia tried to bribe Kyrgyzstan to close the US Manas Air Base in that country, a site supporting NATO operations in Afghanistan.

As one might expect, there were divided opinions. While some Western media outlets tried to justify McFaul’s harsh tone, as well as pointing to the prejudiced attitude of the Russian government to the new ambassador, other sources agreed with the submission that McFaul should learn diplomacy. At the same time, they both agree on one point… the current situation poses a serious threat to the so-called “reset” in relations between Washington and Moscow.

According to The Guardian, Moscow initially gave McFaul the cold shoulder, so its reaction to his statements is unlikely to surprise anyone. British journalists emphasised that, from his arrival in Russia, pro-Kremlin youth organisations subjected McFaul to harassment McFaul, and state media repeatedly said that he was directly influencing the opposition. In this case, The Guardian compared the wave of criticism of McFaul’s posts on Twitter by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) to the campaigns of the Soviet press during the Cold War. The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) shared a similar view… this publication has won a reputation in the journalistic world of the media eschewing the sensational in order to accentuate objectivity and informational value. The CSM believes that McFaul came to Moscow with the intention of “not paying court” to the Kremlin from the first days of his appointment. In their view, you can discern this from the fact that McFaul arrived in Russia at a time of a sharp aggravation of the conflict between the government and the opposition. In this situation, his desire to establish a dialogue with opposition leaders… quite natural, in the CSM’s opinion, for a diplomatic representative… was regarded by the Russian government as the open support of the protest movement. Under these circumstances, sharp remarks from the ambassador couldn’t help but cause a negative reaction from the Kremlin.

McFaul’s “Twitter War”, along with his spats with the MID, has caught the interest of one the most influential American newspapers, The New York Times. Michael Schwirtz of the Times expressed surprise at the fact that the MID decided to respond to the US Ambassador’s statements in such an unexpected way. The Times agreed that McFaul, who’s hardly a career diplomat, has to learn the subtleties of the diplomatic trade if he doesn’t want to fail in the important mission entrusted to him by the US government. Forbes magazine took a very sceptical view of McFaul’s tactics and behaviour. According to an article by Mark Adomanis, McFaul has proved to be a good scholar, but a poor diplomat. In Adomanis’ view, McFaul’s lack of diplomatic skills could easily abort the “reset” of Russian-American relations. One should also note that Forbes criticised the Russian authorities, citing repeated attempts to provoke the US ambassador.

A majority of Western media outlets remain sceptical of the Russian government, and, in general, don’t approve of its reaction to the American ambassador’s statements. At the same time, one must note that a significant number of outlets acknowledge McFaul’s lack of necessary skills and condemns the harsh and uncompromising tone of his remarks. Indeed, this fact is yet another confirmation that Michael McFaul mightn’t be the best candidate for such a responsible post.

1 June 2012

Vladimir Gladkov

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2012_06_01/76715353/

Editor’s Note:

Orthodox people, take note… Victor Potapov of the ROCOR, and Lyonyo Kishkovsky, Anya Schmemann, and John Jillions of the OCA play a VERY equivocal role in this drama. Potapov’s a long-time BBG operative (thusly, a Langley man)… Lyonyo and Anya are part of the CFR (more hangers-on than movers-and-shakers)… John Jillions was a paid dogsbody for the Uniates (ergo, he plunged a knife into the back of our co-religionists in Galicia). That means that they support the Western assault on the Rodina and the canonical Church. Paffhausen supports the attack on the Rodina through his drooling support for every Far Right organisation and cause out there (certainly, the Centre must know this)… interesting, no? What exists on the ground and what’s reported to the Centre are two RATHER different things.

I’d pay good bucks to know where Vlad Berzansky Jr fits into all of this… he’s an “interesting” and “complex” character; no doubt, worthy of a good John le Carré novel (he’s the only person of real ability mentioned in this note… all the rest are dribblin’ dweebs).

BMD

Putin Opponents Rally “For Fair Elections”

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On Saturday, thousands of people critical of Prime Minister Putin rallied peacefully in central Moscow, asserting that Putin’s recent victory in the presidential election wasn’t fair and demanding reform. Police said that around 10,000 people turned out… organisers put the number at 25,000… for the authorised protest along a central Moscow avenue and participants vowed to press ahead in the future with their demonstrations whether they received permission or not. The size of the crowd however was far smaller than the mass opposition demonstrations that shook Russia earlier this winter, the mood of participants was more subdued, and key protest leaders like blogger Aleksei Navalny stood quietly in the crowd and didn’t address the rally. Anton Yezhov, a middle-aged lawyer who works in a law office near the protest site, said, “I’m not sure what’s going to happen with the protest movement. I don’t rule out that Russia will return to totalitarianism, but it’s my civic duty to come out and show that I don’t agree with the way the elections were stolen”.

Putin, 59, won the 4 March presidential election with 63.6 percent of the vote, according to the Central Election Commission, ensuring his return to the Kremlin after a four-year hiatus during which he’s been prime minister. Putin’s opponents and some international observers said the vote was biased in Putin’s favour and claim his support was probably much lower. Putin himself acknowledged violations, but said these were not of sufficient magnitude to have altered the official results significantly. However, no one disputed that Putin won the majority of votes, and, on Friday, US President Barack Obama telephoned Putin and formally congratulated him on his election victory, officials in Washington and Moscow said. Russian opposition activists however shrugged off the US recognition of Putin’s return to the Kremlin, insisting that Washington’s stance in no way altered their position that Russia’s in serious need of political reform.

Liberal {that’s to say “conservative” in Anglosphere terms: editor} opposition activist Vladimir Ryzhkov, one of the speakers at Saturday’s rally, told RIA-Novosti that Obama’s congratulation of Putin “meant nothing. The main thing for us is that people are coming out onto the streets to show their opposition to Putin and we know that the only people who can change anything in our country are we ourselves. We don’t need Obama”. Although the crowd at the demonstration was calm, police presence in the area (and elsewhere in the Russian capital) was pervasive, and a police helicopter hovered over the rally. Some demonstrators said that they felt the event was a “let-down”. Yuri Rostovsky, a pensioner from Moscow, said, “I’m disappointed by the low turnout. Nothing will change in Russia for the better until we get at least half a million people on the street”.

However, opposition leaders said that the turnout at the demonstration pleased them, as it happened during a long holiday weekend, when many Muscovites were out of town, and vowed to hold more gatherings ahead of Putin’s 7 May inauguration. Speaking from a stage erected alongside the avenue of the rally site, leftist opposition activist Sergei Udaltsov told the crowd, “We need to get a million people to turn out on the streets before the inauguration”. He then led the crowd in chanting “We Are the Power! We Are the Power!” Udaltsov admitted the turnout at Saturday’s protest was much lower than at previous opposition rallies. He said this was because “the entire Kremlin propaganda machine has been working full-time to convince people that what we saw were elections”. The participants at Saturday’s rally were a mix of Neoliberal opposition activists, nationalists, communists, and pensioners, united only by their anger at Russia’s current political reality. One protestor dressed as RoboCop, the Hollywood science-fiction movie figure, and carried a sign reading, “RoboCop against the RoboCops.”

Ryzhkov also said the opposition would continue to press its demands, saying, “We’ll continue to demand freedom of speech, snap parliamentary elections, and a new presidential vote with the introduction of new rules. We also demand the end of censorship of the media and the release of political prisoners”. Other speakers at the rally included chess player-turned-opposition activist Garry Kasparov, TV presenter socialite Ksenia Sobchak, as well as several vote monitors.

A series of mass rallies have occurred in Moscow since December, when Putin’s United Russia Party won in parliamentary elections marred by allegations of electoral fraud across the country. Five massive opposition events between December and March each attracted tens of thousands of demonstrators. Putin’s supporters have also held rallies attracting tens of thousands of people, most recently in a huge Moscow sports stadium a week ahead of the presidential election.

Earlier this month, the cops arrested around 250 people on Pushkinskaya Square after an anti-Putin protest when they failed to obey police orders to disperse after the allotted time for the demonstration had expired. On Saturday, Udaltsov attempted to lead some 60 activists in an unsanctioned march on the Kremlin from the Novy Arbat, but police stopped them, briefly detaining Udaltsov and two others. Moscow police also reported detaining 25 nationalists who attempted to stage an unspecified “provocation” by the central Kievsky Railway Terminal, around a kilometre (@2/3 mile) from Novy Arbat. Meanwhile, on Saturday, in St Petersburg, where City Hall refused to authorise an opposition rally downtown, about 60 activists attempted to march in the city’s centre, but police dispersed and arrested them. Protests also took place in several major cities in Siberia, but only attracted dozens in each case. In Nizhny Novgorod, some 150 attended an unsanctioned rally; the cops nicked 85 of them.

10 March 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120310/172077156.html

Editor’s Note:

There’s an interesting wrinkle in the late Russian presidential election that really illuminates the situation, but the Western press isn’t telling you the whole story (as per usual). Most Western reporters and “experts” (such as Sophia Kishkovsky, Anya Schmemann, and Katrina vanden Heuvel) are incredibly shallow and lazy. Ergo, they spend most of their time with zapadnik Neoliberals in the two capitals (these phonies also go gaga over Aleksandr Men, Pavel Florensky, Georgi Kochetkov, and the Blunder).

However, there was an interesting factoid about how such creepozoids voted. Such people gave most of their votes to the pro-American running-dog Prokhorov… so much so that he had three times his “average” in both the Centre and Piter, giving him 25 percent of the vote at the Centre and 30 percent in Piter. The two capitals are 11.5 percent of the Russian population; this gave Prokhorov 3.0 percent of the national vote just like that. Prokhorov’s national average was 7.9 percent, which means that his percentage of the vote outside of the capitals was 5.5 percent. This means that his percentage of the vote was 300 percent above average in the capitals, and only 70 percent of the average outside of the capitals (or 30 percent below average, to put it another way). Prokhorov can’t mine any more support in the capitals, and the hinterlands have never been a zapadniki stronghold. They’ve always been strongest in Piter, with a lot in the Centre (due to its role as capital), with scatterings in the provinces.

Furthermore, the vote for Prokhorov was a “protest” vote, and such gestures have a very short “shelf life”. It’s much like the 2010 Tea Party bubble… it’s blowing over, and if events move on their present course until November, it looks like a landslide for Obama. That’s why most of what you’re reading in the Western press is utter bullshit… they’re printing what their corporate bosses tell them to. The Russian election wasn’t as corrupt as many American elections are… it was “cleaner” than elections in Florida, Texas, Cook County, and Arkansas are… if you doubt me, reflect on the fact that James Carville was a trusted employee of the Clintons (I rest my case). Trust me, if you want to find “stuffed” ballot boxes, go to Little Rock or Dallas… not Moscow or Petersburg…

BMD