O liberalismo russo não está apenas em crise, politicamente falando. Ele deixou de existir. Ele não está representado no Parlamento, desapareceu como foco de debates públicos, até mesmo entre os intelectuais, e reivindica ser uma ideologia confiável e politicamente atrativa. Agora parece vão, se não ridículo. Eu utilizo o termo "liberalismo russo" como um conceito abrangente que contempla as práticas e mecanismos políticos do tipo neoliberal e social-liberal, e que identificou a "saída do comunismo" russa com o estabelecimento do governo da lei, do pluralismo político e ideológico, da economia de mercado e de uma abertura ao Ocidente.Nem a natureza repressiva do atual regime nem a hostilidade inata da "tradição cultural" russa em relação ao liberalismo pode explicar esta calamidade. Estas são pseudo-explicações que servem aos liberais do país como pretextos para a sua própria inocência. Se o liberalismo está para renascer na Rússia, é preciso compreender as causas políticas de sua morte. O liberalismo falhou como ideologia na Rússia depois do colapso do comunismo. Agora, os liberais precisam se libertar do fardo do legado de Boris Yeltsin - o seu despudorado neoliberalismo - e confrontar o tipo de capitalismo exprimido pelo "capitalismo autoritário" do atual regime.

Até o fim dos anos 1990, o regime do capitalismo autoritário não havia sido consolidado. Os futuros autocratas ainda precisavam da elite intelectual liberal como um de seus suportes. Então, quando Vladimir Putin tornou-se presidente, foi cuidadoso ao preservar a aparência de participação dos liberais na política, até mesmo designando alguns deles como "conselheiros", "especialistas" e funcionários do regime. Aqueles que estavam determinados a colocar as suas crenças liberais em prática, mais tarde foram expulsos de seus cargos, e o resto foi assimilado na nascente e solidificante burocracia do capitalismo autoritário. A "hora da verdade" dos liberais chegou com o novo século, quando o regime percebeu que poderia, de agora em diante, perpetuar-se sem recorrer à elite intelectual liberal. Os liberais foram considerados politicamente desnecessários e o regime os abandonou, ao invés de perseguí-los. Sozinhos, os liberais não poderiam sobreviver politicamente. Foi isto o que predeterminou as falhas eleitorais em 2003 de partidos como Yabloko e a Union of Right Forces [União das Forças de Direita].

Os mesmos liberais, hoje, criticam o regime, e com boas razões. A ausência de um Judiciário independente, graves limitações da liberdade nos meios de comunicação de massa, corrupção extrema em todos os ramos da burocracia e a sistemática perturbação de quase toda a oposição são problemas genuínos. Entretanto, uma coisa é articular todo este descontentamento, e outra totalmente diferente é preparar uma ideologia atrativa e politicamente mobilizadora. Os liberais da Rússia têm que enviar uma mensagem que ressoe para um público mais abrangente, e esta ressonância não pode ser apenas algum tipo de repetição das "superstições" das pessoas. Significa produzir uma alternativa convincente.

O funeral da democracia de Yeltsin pode ter passado, de um modo geral, despercebido, mas os benefícios que as pessoas receberam da época de Putin são nitidamente visíveis. Eles não podem ser calculados exclusivamente em termos de vantagem material, e não é menos importante o fato de que a vida social na Rússia deixou de ser caótica, e a vida política não é mais insultantemente grotesca, mesmo que tenha se tornado tediosa. A "ordem" tem aparecido como a palavra-chave do dia - com todas as suas conotações conservadoras. A "ordem" não é de nenhum modo a mais moderna virtude política, mas é um pré-requisito indispensável de todo progresso político, e é apreciado como tal. Mas é questionável que, para muitos russos, o regime de Putin tenha algum valor intrínseco. Para eles, é, todavia, melhor do que a imprevisibilidade e a palhaçada que eram tão típicos do período de Yeltsin. Esta preferência racional não pode ser ignorada ou mal interpretada, mas condena os liberais russos a um estado de inexistência política. Os russos somente irão erguer-se em apoio a um tipo diferente de democracia, desde que ofereça um conteúdo social factível e que tenha uma influência nas suas vidas cotidianas.

Também seria injusto para com o período de Putin fazer vistas grossas à continuidade que trouxe em relação ao governo anterior. Esta continuidade experimentou um amadurecimento do tipo de capitalismo introduzido anteriormente, em 1992. Durante o governo de Putin, ele mesmo livrou-se das extravagâncias e irregularidades dos anos iniciais, quando o povo era o mais dolorosamente afetado. Mas, apesar disso, manteve suas características opressivas, corporativistas, oligárquicas e profundamente injustas. O abismo entre os ricos e os pobres da Rússia aumentou durante os anos de Putin e agora está exorbitantemente maior. Então, embora haja uma continuidade, é uma que tem preservado a simbiose entre a propriedade e o poder, mesmo que sua forma institucional tenha mudado. Sob o governo de Yeltsin, foi vista a privatização do poder político por vários oligopólios, que em sua mais pura forma declararam estar no "regime dos sete bancos", ou semibankirschina, que assegurou a reeleição do presidente em 1996, sob a condição de que ele deveria perder seu poder "soberano". Sob o governo de Putin, esta barganha foi abolida. Os clãs que controlam os altos escalões do Estado adquiriram controle sobre os principais recursos econômicos.

Para a maioria dos russos, estas mudanças provaram serem importantes. A autoridade baseada no Estado tende a ser mais sensível aos seus sofrimentos do que os oligarcas capitalistas do setor privado. A alta dos lucros do petróleo e do gás russos desde a virada do século tornou financeiramente possível as políticas para o compartilhamento da riqueza recentemente adquirida pelo país. O regime pôde, assim, reforçar o seu poder.

Se os opositores liberais querem escapar de seu confinamento aos salões políticos de Moscou e São Petersburgo, eles precisam arcar com a nova realidade política e econômica do país. Eles precisam revelar as tensões inerentes ao sistema atual, e necessitam tratar dos descontentamentos atuais através da proposição de estratégias políticas viáveis e populares. Não é suficiente reutilizar o mantra da violação dos direitos humanos, porque são necessárias ações radicais. Os liberais da Rússia talvez achem que valha à pena iniciar com o que o ex-presidente da República Tcheca, Václav Havel, apelidou de "trabalho em pequena escala" quando discutia como poderiam resistir ao comunismo no bloco soviético. Foi uma estratégia de pequenas ações muito concretas que, embora aparentemente não fosse ambiciosa, politicamente aprimorou uma moralidade pública alternativa, promoveu redes independentes de cooperação e deu lugar aos pretensos líderes do movimento reformista dentro de uma realista e não-elitista cultura democrática.

Na Rússia, a probabilidade de tal desenvolvimento poderia parecer pequena, a menos que uma dura crise econômica enfraqueça a estabilidade do capitalismo autoritário de Putin. Mas a dedicação e tenacidade humanas não mudaram ocasionalmente o fluxo da história? Afinal de contas, antes de 1989 pouquíssimas pessoas tomaram Havel como um clarividente.

Boris Kapustin*

Acesse o texto original clicando aqui.

*Boris Kapustin é um pesquisador sênior convidado no Instituto de Filosofia da Academia de Ciências Russa, e professor visitante na Universidade de Yale. Uma versão expandida deste comentário aparecerá na edição de outono da "Europe's World" (www.europesworld.org).

The Paulson Plan

Robert Wenzel | Information Clearing House, Sep 29, 2008

The word oligarchy dates back at least to the time of Aristotle and comes from the Greek words for "few" (ὀλίγον olígon) and "rule" (ἄρχω arkho). An oligarchy is generally considered any form of government where a small elite segment of society, be they from royalty, wealth, family or military, rule. The most current day popular meaning associates an oligarch with an extremely wealthy person who acquires his wealth, or increases it significantly, by incorporating the use of government influence. Oligarchs are not the only ones who become rich, but their success and secretive influence over governments put them into a separate class.

A recent example of a major grab of power and wealth in this type of oligarch fashion comes from the period of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the confusion during the collapse, and the rise of Boris Yeltsin as president of Russia, the oligarchs made their move. With relatives or close associates as government officials, sometimes even government officials themselves, they achieved vast wealth by acquiring state assets very cheaply during the so-called "privatization" process controlled by the Yeltsin government.

The current $700 billion Paulson bailout plan has brought to the forefront a new class of what must be called American Oligarchs and oligarch wannabes. Some may have originally earned their wealth by supplying consumers with desired goods, but at some point they crossed over to the dark side to use government as a vehicle to take from the poor and the middle class to give to themselves. Others, never produced an honest product and have been career long parasites on the working classes.

It is instructive that outside of this small group of oligarchs and wannabe oligarchs, few appear to have been in favor of the Paulson "bailout". (Note: The use of the word "bailout" to describe the Paulson Plan is a misnomer, see my column: THE BIG LIE: The Supposed Paulson 'Bailout' Plan).

A letter circulated and signed by many academic economists was sent to Congressional leaders objecting to the plan. The Austrian economists, who are the only ones who understand the business cycle, as would be expected also objected to the plan (See Rockwell: Stop the Bailout and Murphy: The Government Is Not Promoting Stability ).

Even some bankers have objected:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's proposed $700 billion bank rescue aims to help ``poorly run'' companies and the primary beneficiaries would be Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, said BB&T Corp. Chief Executive Officer John Allison in a critique of the plan.

Treasury ``is totally dominated by Wall Street investment bankers'' and ``cannot be relied on to objectively assess'' the impact of government policy on the financial industry, Allison wrote in a Sept. 23 letter to Congress...

Allison, 60, said Congress should ``hear from well-run financial institutions'' as lawmakers consider the plan, which seeks to ease the credit crunch by buying troubled mortgage- related assets. Under Allison, Winston-Salem, North Carolina- based BB&T avoided the subprime mortgage market, whose collapse led to the credit crisis. BB&T has risen 26 percent this year, the best showing in the 24-company KBW Bank Index.

From the right, Newt Gingrich has called the plan "stupid." From the left, Paul Krugman opposed the plan, calling it "Cash for trash."

Most noteworthy is the fact that the notoriously pro-Bush FOX television network carried this AP report:

There is scant public support for President Bush's $700 billion federal rescue plan for the U.S. financial industry and little expectation it would solve the crisis that has roiled the markets and hobbled some of the country's largest investment firms, according to a poll released Friday.

Just 30 percent of Americans say they support Bush's package, according to an Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll released as White House and congressional leaders struggled to rescue the plan after House Republicans rebelled against it. Despite the president's pleas that the package is urgently needed to prevent an economic meltdown, 45 percent say they oppose Bush's proposal while 25 percent said they are undecided.

Yet, despite the extremely limited support for the plan, the Oligarchs prevailed and Paulson's Plan will become law. Indeed, the Oligarchs were out in full force to support the legislation. As I have pointed out before, Paulson with his Goldman Sachs connections must be considered an oligarch, but there are others.

Billionaire David Rubenstein, co-founder of the politically connected Carlyle Group, has come out in favor of Paulson's Plan. Rubenstein told CNBC that he hopes Congress will move quickly to approve the rescue of the U.S. financial system.

Carlyle Group almost has too many ways to benifit from Paulson's Plan to count. They ran a mortgage securities firm that went under. Those securities will be coming up for sale under a reorganization, just in time for purchase by the Treasury.

The Federal Reserve has changed regulations which will allow them to buy larger stakes in bank stocks. And Rubenstein wants to buy some of the paper the Treasury acquires. "Private equity can help by buying these assets," he told CNBC. "Private equity can be among the most significant buyers of assets."

Billionaire Warren Buffett is in favor of the plan, and he just bought, through Berkshire Hathaway, a $5 billion stake in Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs just received approval from the Fed to become a bank holding company, so that they can buy up troubled banks (And then sell the troubled mortgages of the banks to the Treasury?). Buffett called Paulson's plan "absolutely necessary'' and said that "I am betting on the Congress doing the right thing for the American public and passing this bill,''

Billionaire Wilbur Ross , through a firm controlled by Ross, bid $435 million last September to buy the service unit of American Home Mortgage, which collects payments from homeowners. He is in favor of Paulson's Plan and penned a column published at the New York Post to say so, "...we need this passed, and passed quickly...,"wrote Ross.

There are likely other oligarchs who maintain a low profile and keep their names out of the headlines, and there are oligarch wannabes like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani . Giuliani has put out a press release advising that his firm has formed a "task force" to "guide financial institutions, private investment funds, institutional investors and other market participants through the legislative, regulatory and enforcement challenges posed by the" Paulson Plan.

Clearly, the new oligarchs have arrived in America. It will mean a lower standard of living for the rest of us as it is clear by the Paulson Plan that they are not afraid to think big when grabbing money from the populous at large. Further, they have the political skill and influence to get the legislation passed that will benefit themselves even when there is virtually non-existent popular support. Be scared, very scared. The new American Oligarchs now rule financial America and there is no such thing as enough with them. They will be back for another big bite from our wallets and income streams, all too soon.

Update: Word has reached me (HTrpm) that snuck into Paulson's plan are changes that will make it easier for the Fed to inflate the money supply. So is the play for the Oligarchs to grab the banks, the assets and the mortgages and then inflate the money supply boosting the value of all these assets by trillions, while the rest of us simply get to deal with the price inflation as higher prices at the grocery store, the gas pump and everywhere else?

Robert Wenzel is an economic consultant and Editor & Publisher of EconomicPolicyJournal.com. He can be reached at rw@economicpolicyjournal.com.

Hoje vamos desmistificar a cerveja, saber o porquê de ser favorita, sem essa firula da Bohemia, com historinhas das madres mancas que plantavam trigo no cume com a roseira.

Ai, eu vou é encher a cara!

Cerveja, o que é?

Bom, se você está lendo isso aqui e não sabe, aconselho o senhor a visitar esse site. Agora que você já sabe, vamos ao que interessa.

A cerveja é coca-cola da nossa geração. Serve para evitar pedra nos rins, lotar filas de banheiro e, dependendo do caso, fazer com que você solte o american idol que existe dentro de você. Com a cerveja você pode socializar e, se exagerar, faz com que você passe vergonha.

A cerveja, geralmente, não tem o poder do vinho e da vodka de fazer você ter um porre conhecido como PT. Porém, ao exagerar, prepare-se para a maior dor de cabeça que você vai ter na vida, depois da dor de corno, óbvio.

A cerveja é altamente calórica (assim como todas a bebidas) e é conhecida por transformar as gatinhas do colegial nas pançudinhas da faculdade. Sua cor dourada faz com que seres normais virem monstrinhos do Senhor dos Anéis, não dividindo o copo nem com a Angelina Jolie. Alguns homens, depois de um dia estressante de trabalho, trocam a Angelina pela cerveja, afinal ela não reclama e não vai querer fazer você adotar 20 criancinhas.

A cerveja dá bafo sim senhor, e não há trident que vá te ajudar. Aconselhamos você escolher o dia da cerveja e o dia de pegar geral. Se for fazer os dois, por favor, tente comer alguma coisa antes, de preferência um alimento (cebola e alho é sacanagem).

A cerveja também é conhecida como porta de entrada do inferno: em muitos casos, é a bebida que faz com que você tome a iniciativa de tomar uma cachacinha, um uisquezinho, uma baranguinha e etc.

A cerveja, por seu custo baixo, é amiga dos universitário, pois, como todo mundo sabe, universitário é duro: ou é estagiário de bigodinho ou vagabundo com mesada sem-vergonha dos pais. Os que tem dinheiro bebem chopp e uísque, bebidas que abordaremos em outros posts.

Você não vai ficar com ela bebendo. Nem vai ficar assim.

Cerveja vai bem com o quê?

Olha, no meu ponto de vista, vai bem até com jiló. Se fosse homem, falaria que iria bem até com sua mãe, mas sou fina.

Falando sério, a cerveja vai bem com comidas bem gordurosas, como aperitivos, feijoada e churrasco. Por bebermos bem gelada, ela dá aquela refrescada e não deixa você gordinha suada (ou safada, como preferirem). Eu gosto muito de cerveja com pizza, mas eu sou alcoólatra e estou há 24 horas sem beber (mais 24 horas!).

Feijoada chupinhada daqui.

Quais cervejas tomar?

Bom, acredito piamente que depois da primeira você toma qualquer uma, mas realmente a diferença entre cerveja é grande e mesmo entre as populares, você tem uma preferida. Jabás a parte (apesar de eu não ganhar nem uma dose de pinga com o blog), vou fazer uma seleção de cervejas.

Para beber no boteco: Boteco, pra mim, é do Zé e do Bigode. Se o seu boteco tem papel higiênico, já virou bar. No boteco, se você tiver um pouquinho de critério, aconselho a Brahma. Se a Brahma estiver quente, a Skol. E se não tive nenhuma das duas, você pode baixar o nível geral e seguir a linha Itaipava, Nova Schin ou Crystal. Agora, se não tiver nenhuma dessas, peça um ovo colorido e uma Cynar, porquê o lugar é podre.

Para beber no bar: Bar tem papel higiênico e escondidinho. O garçom te atende e as pessoas não possuem nenhuma micose visível. Nesse caso, sigo duas linhas de preferência, pois são geralmente bebidas que acompanham comidas. Se for um boteco-chique, com porções ou feijoada, Original e chinelinho. Se for bar mesmo, com uma carta de cervejas, vou de Norteña, Quilmes ou Eisenbahn. E sapato de bico fino, por favor.

Para fazer churrasco: Bom, o churras também tem seus critérios. Se o churras for aquele no fim do mês, onde o pessoal só ta agitando porque acabou o dinheiro da balada, pode ser até Bavária, pois o intuito é ficar bêbado. Agora se for um churras comemorativo, vamos de Itaipava garrafa ou Skol. E picanha, sem essa de coxão mole, pelo amor.

Para beber em jogos universitários: Olha, não há critério para jogos universitários. Eu me envergonho nesses eventos.

Bom gente, esse foi nosso Manual. Semana que vem, falaremos da Vodka, amiga de Yeltsin e popularmente conhecida como vódega. Um abraço para todos e depois de Domingo Maior, vão dormir.

On this day in 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, stunning the world, given their diametrically opposed ideologies. But the dictators were, despite appearances, both playing to their own political needs.

After Nazi Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia, Britain had to decide to what extent it would intervene should Hitler continue German expansion. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, at first indifferent to Hitler's capture of the Sudetenland, the German-speaking area of Czechoslovakia, suddenly snapped to life when Poland became threatened. He made it plain that Britain would be obliged to come to the aid of Poland in the event of German invasion. But he wanted, and needed, an ally. The only power large enough to stop Hitler, and with a vested interest in doing so, was the Soviet Union. But Stalin was cool to Britain after its effort to create a political alliance with Britain and France against Germany had been rebuffed a year earlier. Plus, Poland's leaders were less than thrilled with the prospect of Russia becoming its guardian; to them, it was simply occupation by another monstrous regime.

Hitler believed that Britain would never take him on alone, so he decided to swallow his fear and loathing of communism and cozy up to the Soviet dictator, thereby pulling the rug out from the British initiative. Both sides were extremely suspicious of the other, trying to discern ulterior motives. But Hitler was in a hurry; he knew if he was to invade Poland it had to be done quickly, before the West could create a unified front. Agreeing basically to carve up parts of Eastern Europe-and leave each other alone in the process-Hitler's foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, flew to Moscow and signed the non-aggression pact with his Soviet counterpart, V.M. Molotov (which is why the pact is often referred to as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact). Supporters of bolshevism around the world had their heretofore romantic view of "international socialism" ruined; they were outraged that Stalin would enter into any kind of league with the fascist dictator.

But once Poland was German-occupied territory, the alliance would not last for long.

"The Hitler-Stalin Pact." 2008. The History Channel website. 23 Aug 2008, 04:49 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6560.

On This Day

1838 - The first class was graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, MA. It was one of the first colleges for women.

1839 - Hong Kong was taken by the British in a war with China.

1902 - Fannie Merrit Farmer opened her cooking school, Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery, in Boston, MA.

1914 - Tsingtao, China, was bombarded as Japan declared war on Germany in World War I.

1926 - Rudolph Valentino died. He was 31 and had been a silent film star.

1927 - Nicola Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti were executed in Boston, MA, for the murder of two men during a 1920 robbery.

1947 - Margaret Truman, U.S. President Truman's daughter, gave her first public performance as a singer. The event was at the Hollywood Bowl and had an audience of 15,000.

1959 - In the Peanuts comic strip, Sally debuted as an infant.

1979 - Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York City.

1987 - Robert Jarvik and Marilyn Mach vos Savant were married. The event was called the "Union of Great Minds" since Savant had an IQ of 228 and Jarvik was the inventor of the artificial heart.

1998 - Boris Yeltsin dismissed the Russian government again.

2001 - California Congressman Gary Condit gave an interview to ABC's Connie Chung. Condit denied involvement in Chandra Levy's disappearance and avoided directly answering questions about whether they had an affair.

Dolley Madison saves portrait from British

On this day in 1814, first lady Dolley Madison saves a portrait of George Washington from being looted by British troops during the war of 1812.

According to the White House Historical Society and Dolley’s personal letters, President James Madison left the White House on August 22 to meet with his generals on the battlefield, as British troops threatened to enter the capitol. Before leaving, he asked his wife Dolley if she had the "courage or firmness" to wait for his intended return the next day. He asked her to gather important state papers and be prepared to abandon the White House at any moment. The next day, Dolley and a few servants scanned the horizon with spyglasses waiting for either Madison or the British army to show up. As British troops gathered in the distance, Dolley decided to abandon the couple’s personal belongings and save the full-length portrait of former president and national icon George Washington from desecration by vengeful British soldiers, many of whom would have rejoiced in humiliating England’s former colonists.

Dolley wrote to her sister on the night of August 23 that a friend who came to help her escape was exasperated at her insistence on saving the portrait. Since the painting was screwed to the wall she ordered the frame to be broken and the canvas pulled out and rolled up. Two unidentified "gentlemen from New York" hustled it away for safe-keeping. (Unbeknownst to Dolley, the portrait was actually a copy of Gilbert Stuart’s original). The task complete, Dolley wrote "and now, dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it by filling up the road I am directed to take." Dolley left the White House and found her husband at their predetermined meeting place in the middle of a thunderstorm.

The next night, August 24, British troops enjoyed feasting on White House food using the president’s silverware and china before burning the building. Although they were able to return to Washington only three days later when British troops moved on, the Madisons were not again able to take up residence in the White House and lived out the rest of his term in the city’s Octagon House. It was not until 1817 that newly elected President James Monroe moved back into the reconstructed building.

"Dolley Madison saves portrait from British." 2008. The History Channel website. 23 Aug 2008, 04:54 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=55386.

On this day in 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest during a coup by high-ranking members of his own government, military and police forces.

Since becoming secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 and president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1988, Gorbachev had pursued comprehensive reforms of the Soviet system. Combining perestroika ("restructuring") of the economy--including a greater emphasis on free-market policies--and glasnost ("openness") in diplomacy, he greatly improved Soviet relations with Western democracies, particularly the United States. Meanwhile, though, within the USSR, Gorbachev faced powerful critics, including conservative, hard-line politicians and military officials who thought he was driving the Soviet Union toward its downfall and making it a second-rate power. On the other side were even more radical reformers--particularly Boris Yeltsin, president of the most powerful socialist republic, Russia--who complained that Gorbachev was just not working fast enough.

The August 1991 coup was carried out by the hard-line elements within Gorbachev's own administration, as well as the heads of the Soviet army and the KGB, or secret police. Detained at his vacation villa in the Crimea, he was placed under house arrest and pressured to give his resignation, which he refused to do. Claiming Gorbachev was ill, the coup leaders, headed by former vice president Gennady Yanayev, declared a state of emergency and attempted to take control of the government.

Yeltsin and his backers from the Russian parliament then stepped in, calling on the Russian people to strike and protest the coup. When soldiers tried to arrest Yeltsin, they found the way to the parliamentary building blocked by armed and unarmed civilians. Yeltsin himself climbed aboard a tank and spoke through a megaphone, urging the troops not to turn against the people and condemning the coup as a "new reign of terror." The soldiers backed off, some of them choosing to join the resistance. After thousands took the streets to demonstrate, the coup collapsed after only three days.

Gorbachev was released and flown to Moscow, but his regime had been dealt a deadly blow. Over the next few months, he dissolved the Communist Party, granted independence to the Baltic states, and proposed a looser, more economics-based federation among the remaining republics. In December 1991, Gorbachev resigned. Yeltsin capitalized on his defeat of the coup, emerging from the rubble of the former Soviet Union as the most powerful figure in Moscow and the leader of the newly formed Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Soviet hard-liners launch coup against Gorbachev." 2008. The History Channel website. 18 Aug 2008, 04:48 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=52838.

On This Day

1227 - The Mongol conqueror Ghengis Khan died.

1587 - Virginia Dare became the first child to be born on American soil of English parents. The colony that is now Roanoke Island, NC, mysteriously vanished.

1846 - Gen. Stephen W. Kearney and his U.S. forces captured Santa Fe, NM.

1914 - The "Proclamation of Neutrality" was issued by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. It was aimed at keeping the U.S. out of World War I.

1920 - Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Amendment guaranteed the right of all American women to vote.

1958 - Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Lolita" was published.

1962 - Ringo Starr made his first appearance as a Beatle at a Cavern Club show.

1963 - James Meredith graduated from the University of Mississippi. He was the first black man to accomplish this feat.

1973 - The Doobie Brothers' "China Grove" was released.

1997 - Beth Ann Hogan became the first coed in the Virginia Military Institute's 158-year history.

Woman suffrage amendment ratified

The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is ratified by Tennessee, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it the law of the land. The amendment was the culmination of more than 70 years of struggle by woman suffragists. Its two sections read simply: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex" and "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

"Woman suffrage amendment ratified." 2008. The History Channel website. 18 Aug 2008, 04:49 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5271.

Australia and New Zealand decide to withdraw troops from Vietnam

Australia and New Zealand announce the end of the year as the deadline for withdrawal of their respective contingents from Vietnam. The Australians had 6,000 men in South Vietnam and the New Zealanders numbered 264. Both nations agreed to leave behind small training contingents. Australian Prime Minister William McMahon proclaimed that the South Vietnamese forces were now able to assume Australia's role in Phuoc Tuy province, southeast of Saigon and that Australia would give South Vietnam $28 million over the next three years for civilian projects. Total Australian losses for the period of their commitment in Vietnam were 473 dead and 2,202 wounded; the monetary cost of the war was $182 million for military expenses and $16 million in civilian assistance to South Vietnam.

"Australia and New Zealand decide to withdraw troops from Vietnam." 2008. The History Channel website. 18 Aug 2008, 04:51 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=1284.

Man, how I still wonder what the boys had been up to. Playing with variations over JFK's famous Berlin words, perhaps — like Ich bin a Hamburger/Wiener/Frankfurter, or simply sharing a joint in the backroom? No inhaling involved, of course.

To this day I'd really, really like to know, though. If you don't have a clue what it is I'm talking about, here's a sample:

In the run-up to the Russian Presidential election last year, commentators in the major U.S. media were beginning to wonder if President Vladimir Putin was establishing one party rule. Of course he was.

There had been some criticism by NATO countries of Putin's foreign policy directions since the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning in November, 2006. This critical tone was an innovation as previously the U.S. especially had been pleased with the economic recovery in Russia - taking it mean a general trend toward a free-market system in the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This version of events relies on a simple progressivist view of history. I think a critical reading of broad foreign policy papers shows that something new is developing in Russia and nothing can be assumed about the way it will turn out. I also think its clear that our government and media are poorly equipped to recount these changes or posit likely outcomes.

Anderson's article was written in the aftermath of this critical shift by the NATO governments. As he points out, there were good reasons to be suspicious of the new order in Russia long before Litvinenko's poisoning. Putin's innovative incorporation of the secret services into the economic organization of the Russian industry may mean the new Russia is more repressive than the old Soviet Union.

Anyway, NATO has continued a policy of expansion into the old Warsaw Bloc, as though land grabbing before a potential confrontation with Russia. Georgia began seeking NATO membership in 1999, and was expected to join in the next year or two.

Russia has warned NATO against expanding to its borders, but this has not been taken seriously. Think-tanks like the Carnegie Endowment have suggested that Russia should simply join NATO, but his position seems to disallow independent Russian strategic interests. On March 30, 2008, George Bush endorsed the entry of Ukraine into NATO.

At the same time, NATO proceeded to aid Kosovan separatists to secede from the Republic of Serbia. The Russian government took the side of Belgrade and strongly opposed the further disintegration of Serbia. Commentators always talk without footnotes about a longtime alliance between the Serbs and Russians. Maybe you could consider the relationship of the Russian Empire to Slavic peoples within the Ottoman Empire. Why not first consider the current similarities between Serbia and Russia: relatively large remnants of recently dissolved socialist states (Yugoslavia and the USSR) containing the dominant ethnicity of that state (Serbs and Russians) and retaining large minority populations (Hungarians and Albanians within Serbia, Chechens, Tartars and literally hundreds of other sizable peoples within Russia).

The existence of breakaway regions within Georgia which were for a long time under Russian protection, offered Russia the justification of humanitarian intervention in repelling Georgian encroachments on South Ossetia and Abkhasia. As such it is modeled on NATO 's rationale for defending the Kosovans of Serbia. Even Russia's granting of its national passports to South Ossetians is complemented by the possible future integration of Kosovo within the European Union.

The justifications may be different and so maybe just coincidental. The logic of state dissolution has obviously progressed very far by this time in the former Yugoslavia. However, as power politics Russia and NATO's interventions in small neighboring states are co-equal.

The people who will suffer are the Georgians, who are being collectively punished for their leader's participation in NATO's geopolitical game of chicken.

The U.S. and NATO will have to come to some kind of accommodation with Russia now.

Nixonian Conservative Dimitri Simes wrote in the November/December 2007 Foreign Affairs that the U.S. government had given up on democracy in Russia during the Clinton administration. Yeltsin's willingness to use shock therapy to disestablish state control of the market was sufficient reason for support. When the Russian economy failed, the U.S. supported Yeltsin in his confrontation with the Duma and throughout the continuing economic crisis of the 1990s.

By the end of Clinton's second term, any potential political or social political gains from the dissolution of the Soviet system were erased. All Bush subsequently wanted from Yeltsin's appointed successor, Putin, was to look into his soul and see a strong man that the U.S. could deal with. Even the brutality of the Second Chechen War was only mutely criticized, as Bush pursued war with Iraq.

By now Russia now has no civil society that could oppose a war or launch a popular political movement against government policy. We should consider why that is, but in order to understand why the U.S. encouraged its dissolution first consider how the news from Russia is filtered through U.S. media obsessed with domestic preoccupations.

If you go back and read the wire service and mass market magazine articles on Russia from the past twenty years, you'll find very little that isn't As much as Western media was concerned with the repression of The Other Russia in last year's election, they were never so concerned with the previous repression of the Communist and Agrarian Parties which were already in the Duma and represented much larger constituencies. As foreign and soviet-derived as those parties were (and the CPRF still is) they represented the political expression of millions of Russians. The large protests against Yeltsin's economic policies in April and May 1998 were among the efforts of post Cold War civil society in Russia. Yeltsin's subsequent decision to let the ruble float further destabilized the economy and resulted in the October 7, 1998 general strike by the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR). Responding to Yeltsin's inability to work with the Duma in 1993 the executive committee of the FNPR released a statement in support of the elected house, which read in part:

The trade unions do not aspire to political power, but they cannot accept the trampling on constitutional rights and freedoms, because it inevitably entails a series of violations of the socio-economic rights of working people. The unconstitutional limitation of the activity of one of the branches of power leads to the strengthening of the other and opens the way to a regime of personal power. This can be called nothing other than a coup d'etat.

From "Gitsenko, Kadeikina and Makukhina, 1999, p 364'. Cited in Trade Unions and Politics in Post-Soviet Russia p. 41, Sarah Ashwin and Simon Clarke. Palgrave. 2002. Online in PDF format here.

In hindsight, the committee of the FNPR would seem to be correct. But the political movement in Russia against Yeltsin got very short shrift in the U.S. and Western European governments at the time.

As a labor union, it was compromised by its authoritarian history in the soviet system, but as the largest mass organization in Russia, its failure to affect the outcome of economic policy under Yeltsin ended the aspirations of tens of millions of members within the political process. The independent GMBR metal-worker's union, which had a relationship to the Western-style liberal party Yabloko, participated in the movement, but were equally discredited by its failure. The irrelevancy of these mass organizations is the cause of the new Russian autocracy.

Which leads us to the situation we have today in Russia, where the Communist Party is the only opposition party still represented in the Duma. Neither Fox News nor the News Hour with Jim Lehrer will be able to parse that.

Too often, what we look to see in other countries just a reflection of what we expect to see in this country. The "U.S." position was for a compliant and free-market Russia, so the government encouraged the growth of an autocracy to manage the economic transition.

It isn't surprising to me that the mass media in this country would privilege a foreign policy analyst over the aspirations of the Russian people, since I've experienced the 2001 - 2003 anti-war movement and know that it is essentially only remembered by the million or so participants.

David Bennett will remember 1^st January 2000, above all, for the resignation of Boris Yeltsin (1931 – 2007) from the Russian Presidency. The failure of the West to cultivate relations by encouraging President Yeltsin to foster democracy was one of the great missed opportunities in modern history.  This failure does not negate Boris Yeltsin’s achievement of engineering Russia’s break with totalitarianism. 

This article by David Bennett was originally published in Melbourne publication Serendipity, May 2000.

Boris Yeltsin brought his remarkable political life to an end when he announced his resignation, appropriately on a milestone, the New Year's Day of the New Millennium, to conclude the career that represented a milestone in history.

Anti-anti communism

Yeltsin's successor to the Russian Presidency has been democratically elected and presides over some sort of market economy. Such an inheritance would have been fantasy fifteen years ago. Confounding the Marxist view of history that insists that individual leaders cannot divert its course, the most important dynamic in achieving this seemingly implausible scenario must be attributed to the historical role played by the figure of Boris Yeltsin. Along with Ronald Reagan, his vital contribution to the final discrediting and break up of the Soviet Union and its non-pluralistic style of communism, has been (predictably) belittled by a western media and intellectual elite, which prefers to characterize Yelstin as a gross incompetent and drunkard. This is consistent with, and a continuation of the political culture of 'anti-anti communism'. This political tradition - identified by Dr. Jeanne Kirkpatrick during the Cold War - promoted a perspective that placed the United States on the same moral standing with the (former) Soviet Union. Or worse, anti-anti-communism promoted the dangerous view that communism was a benign force that should be accommodated. Those who were hostile to this viewpoint were accordingly attacked and ridiculed as paranoid Mc Carthyists. This anti-anti communism was particularly evident in the 1980s when President Reagan initiated the process by which the United States militarily challenged the Soviet Union. He did this by building up NATO's nuclear missile stockpiles, by verbally attacking the immorality and illegitimacy of the Soviet Union and by providing covert aid to anti-communist insurgents in the Third World. Throughout the early and mid 1980s there was a well resourced and active "peace movement" which effectively sought to fatally undermine the Reagan-led counter-attack against the Soviet Union. For good measure, President Reagan was often portrayed by the western media as an intellectually limited, befuddled ex-B-Grade movie actor who was guided more by his anti-communist prejudices than by rational analysis.

The Rise of Gorbachev

The Rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, in March 1985, to General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was therefore hailed by much of the western media. Gorbachev's relative youth, vigor and intelligence were often highlighted so as to contrast these virtues with President Reagan's alleged intellectual deficiencies. Gorbachev's policies such as Perestroika(restructuring) and Glasnost (openness) were acclaimed by much of the anti-anti communist media, as they appeared to vindicate the viewpoint that the Soviet Union was a beneficial force in world affairs.

In truth, Gorbachev's Glasnost and Perestroika reforms were deficient. Their objective, to stimulate human initiative and creativity within the Leninist/Stalinist paradigm, was ultimately untenable due to its inherently contradictory nature. However Gorbachev's reforms can be seen as historically significant in that they allowed a maverick such as Boris Yeltsin to break in.

The Rise of Yeltsin

Glasnost and Perestroika were never intended to dilute the Communist Party's predominance. For this reason a figure such as Boris Yeltsin was too dangerous, because he was not prepared to operate within the confines that Gorbachev had set. This became evident when Yeltsin attacked the privileges and corruption of the capital's nomenklatura (Soviet elite).

Consequently Gorbachev dismissed Yeltsin as Moscow party chief in November 1987. The prominence and love that Yeltsin gained from his dismissal resulted in his overwhelming election (89%) in March 1989, to the quasi-representative legislature - the Supreme Soviet. This election victory was in spite of - or perhaps because of - Gorbachev's attempts to block Yeltsin's candidacy. His presence in the Supreme Soviet's Chamber of People's Deputies provided a focus for its authentic reformist minority. The legislature subsequently became a more genuinely pluralist body than Gorbachev had intended it to be.

Perhaps the turning point in Yeltsin's career came in May 1990 when he skillfully lobbied the Russian Federation's Supreme Soviet (legislature) to elect him - over Gorbachev's preferred candidate - as its Speaker; thereby making him the Russian Federation's titular President. In June 1991, Yeltsin consolidated his position when he was elected to the newly created position of Russian Executive President. As President, Yeltsin was able to attract disenchanted reformers from Gorbachev's camp into his own.

First Coup Attempt

With the resignation in December 1990 of Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, the last major 'liberal' in Gorbachev's circle, the General Secretary was left isolated amongst hard-liners and stolid bureaucrats. Shevardnadze's break represented the point at which Gorbachev's reform process effectively came to an end. It was similar to the CPSU's 1961 Congress at which Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization programme was practically terminated (thus paving the way for Leonid Brezhnev to depose Khrushchev in 1964).

As Gorbachev's major critic up until the hard-liners' coup attempt in August 1991, masses of people (the crucial component of which were upper middle aged citizens embittered by the failed expectations of the Khrushchev era) rallied to Yeltsin's standard to oppose the coup outside the Russian Parliament, popularly known as the 'White House'. These demonstrators successfully protected the White House as Russian KGB officers (who had previously left the Soviet KGB) and military officers loyal to Yeltsin's Vice-President, retired Air Force General Aleksandr Rutskoi established an improvised operations centre from which successful resistance to the coup was organised.

At the time of the coup attempt, some western media commentators such as Paul Murphy, the then compare of Australia's SBS's Dateline programme, belittled Yeltsin's heroic stance, and said that he might be able to mount a tank and oppose a coup but was generally incapable of running Russia. The inaccuracy of this analysis became apparent during the aftermath of the abortive coup when Yeltsin rose to the challenge of breaking with the totalitarian past, while Gorbachev conspicuously failed to. The Soviet leader might have managed to cling to office as Soviet President and ensured that the Soviet Union continued on in some more devolved form, had he denounced the CPSU. Unfortunately Gorbachev's nature was such that he could not bring himself to disassociate from the CPSU or come to grips with the fact that its key figures (many of whom owed their positions to Gorbachev) had betrayed him. Instead it was Yeltsin who consequently moved into the void by banning the CPSU, sequestering its considerable assets and skillfully engineering the Soviet Union's peaceful dissolution at the end of 1991.

Yeltsin in Full Power

President Yeltsin's first choice as acting Prime Minister for post-Soviet Russia in January 1992 was the incorruptible, courageous but unfortunately inappropriate free-market fanatic Yegor Gaidar. His decision in early 1992 to remove price controls and to apply economic "shock therapy" led to hyper-inflation and deepened the impoverishment of millions of Russians.

By the end of 1992, Russia's Supreme Soviet forced Yeltsin to dismiss the by now despised Gaidar and to appoint Viktor Chernomyrdin, the former supremo of the Soviet gas industry and a scion of the old Soviet nomenklatura, as the new Prime Minister.

The failure of the August 1991 coup was due to a section of the Russian nomenklatura siding with the popular Yeltsin against the CPSU. This section of the old elite through its control of the Russian Supreme Soviet now sought to reduce Yeltsin to the role of figurehead and in so doing to preserve and to enhance their privileges. President Yeltsin was not prepared to play such a role and in the ensuing crisis, the Russian leader attempted to preserve his presidential prerogatives, while attempting to reach a compromise with the legislature. Unfortunately, neither Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi nor his guiding hand, parliamentary Speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov were prepared to make such a compromise. It was they who determined to crush Yeltsin and to ensure that their 'People's Socialist Party' obtained the bulk of the CPSU's sequestered assets.

The western media generally portrayed the dispute as one between a democratically inclined 'Parliament' attempting to valiantly stifle a would-be dictator. The subsequent shelling of the White House in October 1993 by the Yeltsin regime was in response to the Khasbulatov/Rutskoi forces attacking the Moscow Mayor's office as they commenced their coup attempt against Yeltsin. The president's narrow military victory over the rebels enabled him to decisively break with the Soviet era institutions and repudiate those officials that had been spawned by them.

Constitution and Elections

The adoption of a new Russian constitution in December 1993 and the holding of the first parliamentary elections since those held in 1912 during the Tsarist era, were giant steps towards Russia becoming a constitutional democracy. The western media tended to negate the milestones by critiquing the powers that the constitution bestowed upon the president.

It should not be forgotten that Russia's totalitarian legacy was far more extensive and entrenched than in the former Soviet bloc countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Consequently Yeltsin's capacity to enact reform was constricted by the absence of a strong civil society and Russia's lack of a democratic tradition. In this context, the realistic possibility of a Weimar fate should not be understated. Yeltsin had to survive coups from the Left and see off a challenge from Vladimir Zhirinovsky's neo-fascist 'Liberal-Democratic Party' (sic) when it won a plurality in the December 1993 Duma elections. The legacy of three generations of totalitarian rule had left Russia in such a parlous state that it made it difficult for a democratically inclined political party to do well. The post-Soviet inheritance that was bequeathed to Yeltsin was a poisoned chalice that was tailor-made to destroy the political career of anyone who hazarded to lead Russia. Consequently and paradoxically the provision of a strong executive presidency has been a necessity for safeguarding Russia's transition toward becoming a fully fledged constitutional democracy.

Following the December 1993 parliamentary elections President Yeltsin appointed Anatoly Chubais as deputy Prime Minister. President Yeltsin placed Chubais in charge of privatizing Russia's massive State sector.

Between early 1994 and late 1995 Chubais oversaw the biggest sell-off of state assets in history. Unfortunately, senior bureaucrats and those with privileged connections were able to buy the bulk of Russia's assets at ludicrously low prices. This privatization frenzy regrettably spawned a class of tycoon which became the new dominant elite in Yeltsin's Russia. These tycoons became the primary pillars upon which Yeltsin relied in order to survive for want of a strong democratic movement. The subsequent emergence and rapid growth of a powerful Russian Mafia (much of which was drawn from the ranks of the defunct KGB/GRU) has been a blight on Russian society. Another persistent problem has been the collapse of the taxation system's revenue base and the state's subsequent inability to pay its employees their wages.

The socio-economic travails connected with Russia's transition to a market economy provided considerable grist for the western media to vigorously attack Yeltsin. The western media generally lambasted Yeltsin and subtly implied that Russia would have been better off had the Soviet Union continued. Yeltsin's subsequent travails were often portrayed as a type of poetic justice that was his due for having destroyed the Soviet system and to imply that Russia's break with communism had been a mistake.

However Chubais' privatization plan was a necessary evil because it enabled Russia to finally cut the Gordian Knot and break with the legacy of the Soviet command model of economy. Therefore the potential now exists for Russia to move toward having a more socially just and economically prosperous future. For all the justified criticisms that were leveled against Chubais, his overall economic reform programme enabled Russia to avoid the scourge of mass unemployment and hyper-inflation that would have eventuated had Gaidar been left in charge.

Chechnya

President Yeltsin's resort to military force to keep the republic of Chechnya in the Russian Federation, was relentlessly attacked. The two periods during which Russia undertook bloody military action in Chechnya between January 1995 and July 1996 (which ended in defeat for Russia) and from late 1999 to the present, were unequivocally denounced by the western media, with some commentators portraying Yeltsin as a blood-stained ogre. The hypocrisy of these attacks from the media is apparent when one considers their relatively mute to tame criticism of the carnage the Soviet Union wrought on Afghanistan (1979-1989).

President Yeltsin's decision to order military intervention in Chechnya, in order to stifle its succession from the Russian Federation, presented him with an acute dilemma; how to sustain unpopular military action (in the 1995-96 period) whilst overseeing Russia's transition to a democracy. The nature of this balancing act was analogous to President Abraham Lincoln's ultimately successful struggle to keep the United States together in the 1860s whilst safeguarding American democracy.

It should not be forgotten that the Chechen dictator, General Dzhokhar Dudayev, supported the August 1991 coup attempt by CPSU hard-liners and in the wake of its failure expelled Soviet (soon to become Russian Federation) forces from Chechnya. President Yeltsin was prepared to implicitly acknowledge the reality of de facto Chechen independence. Dudyuev's uncompromising insistence on de jure independence placed President Yeltsin in an impossible bind because it set a dangerous precedent that could have precipitated the unraveling of the Russian Federation and the consequent collapse of a democratic Russia (which is probably what Dudayev intended).

For all the unfortunate carnage that characterized the first, unsuccessful period of Russian military intervention (1995-1996) in Chechnya there were some beneficial (if unintended) outcomes in relation to the evolution of a Russian federal State. The havoc that Russia's first military campaign (1995-1996) unleashed, served as a warning to other non-Russian constituent republics within the federation to remain within the fold of Russian unity. In return for the regions making this fundamental concession, the Yeltsin regime felt secure and confident enough to grant them considerable autonomy without endangering Russian unity. The emergence of a more devolved Russian State augers well for the consolidation of Russian democracy.

Re-election

Not only did Boris Yeltsin play an important role in establishing a democratic Russia, but also in maintaining it against adverse odds. The historical absence of a Russian democratic tradition, the subsequent weakness of Russia's democratic movement (up until the results of the 1999 Duma elections) and public disillusionment caused by the massive problems associated with communism's collapse, created a plausible scenario in the mid-nineties, which could have resulted in the election of an extremist, anti-democratic government of either the left or the right. Consequently as President Yeltsin approached the mid 1996 presidential election, the prospects for Russia's continuance and consolidation as a democracy hinged upon him winning re-election. With credible opinion polls (released in January 1996) placing President Yeltsin's approval rating at a mere 8%, members of his entourage, tycoons and senior ministers secretly urged him to abort the presidential election, suspend the constitution and to impose martial law. President Yeltsin refused to follow such an unethical course of action, despite the threat posed by both the extreme left and right.

The western media's coverage of Russia's July 1996 Presidential election was generally hostile towards Yeltsin, who was portrayed as someone who had passed his use-by date. The subliminal message that the western media projected was that Russia's break with communism had been a mistake and that this was borne out by President Yeltsin's personal inadequacies. In hindsight however President Yeltsin's re-election was a major milestone in consolidating Russia's emergent democracy because a moderate, i.e. Yeltsin, was able to win re-election in the midst of political polarization. President Yeltsin's re-election campaign was predominantly financed by tycoons and the campaign itself was secretly directed by a group of American political/media consultants. The Yeltsin camp's key campaign strategy was to polarize the electorate by waging a fiercely anti-communist campaign and to stress the theme in its intensive media blitz. To counteract the Communist Party's organisational strength, President Yeltsin, despite severe health problems, undertook a grueling campaign schedule by touring the regions. Yeltsin garnered 35% of the vote in the first round on 16^th June (against the Communists' Gennady Zyuganov's 32%). Having qualified for the Presidential run-off on 3^rdJuly, Yeltsin's re-election hinged on co-opting the support of the third placed Aleksandr Lebed (a retired General who received 14.5% of the vote). Defence Minister Pavel Grachev (without whose support Yeltsin could not have survived the October 1993 coup attempt) was adamantly opposed to any accommodation with Lebed and tried to bully Yeltsin into suspending the constitution. The president held his ground by dismissing Grachev (thus ensuring that the tradition of civilian political supremacy over the military was maintained) and appointing Lebed Secretary of the powerful Security Council. Yeltsin was subsequently re-elected with 53% of the vote. (President Yeltsin was later to dismiss Lebed as Secretary of the Security Council in October 1996, because he had used it as a platform to attempt to become Russia's strongman).

Second Term

President Yeltsin's second presidential term was not a happy one due to his chronic ill-health (Yeltsin is thought to have survived a massive heart attack in July 1996) and the gravity of the political challenges that he faced. Despite the vast presidential powers that the Constitution conferred on the President, Yeltsin's capacity was stifled by the extremist parties' majority in the Duma. A pattern of government subsequently emerged by which the president allowed the competing figures in his entourage to administer (or in some cases pilfer) the state whilst he arbitrated amongst these different power blocs. Due to chronic ill-health, Yeltsin often withdrew into prolonged convalescences which normally ended with the president dismissing a senior official in order to keep everyone off balance. Naturally enough, the western media lambasted Yeltsin's performance without taking into account the adverse conditions in which he operated.

Due to President Yeltsin's ill health Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin emerged as the nation's principal administrator. Chernomyrdin was a competent, if stolid, bureaucrat in old style Soviet mould, who had utilized his position to enrich himself (he is reputed to be a billionaire) and to corruptly build up his war chest to financed his planned bid for the presidency in 2000. While President Yeltsin was prepared, out of necessity, to rely upon and utilize tarnished figures such as Chernomyrdin or Grachev in order to survive, he was not prepared to surrender Russia's destiny to them and thus extinguish Russia's prospects for becoming a democracy. Consequently the president dismissed Chernomyrdin as Prime Minister in March 1998 (thus inaugurating a dizzying period during which Russia went through seven governments up to and including Vladimir Putin's appointment as Prime Minister in August 1999). During this period, in September 1998 in the midst of the ruble's meltdown in value, President Yeltsin yielded to pressure from the communist-dominated Duma to appoint Yevgeny Primakov as Prime Minister. Primakov was a former KGB spymaster and a Soviet apologist who established a tacit relationship/alliance with Zyuganov's communists. It is noteworthy to contrast the generally sympathetic treatment that Primakov received in attempting to address Russia's massive problems with the contempt with which Yeltsin was treated by the western media.

Co-habilitation

Primakov's elevation to the position of Prime Minister represented the nadir for President Yeltsin as he withdrew into semi-retirement. During this period Yeltsin was dismissed as a has-been and was subjected to a concerted campaign for his resignation as the Russian Communist Party regained its former position (if only in a de facto context) as Russia's "power party". From Yeltsin's perspective Primakov's tenure as Prime Minister was a positive one in that it facilitated a degree of co-operation between the executive and legislature which enabled Russia to avoid a catastrophic financial collapse and to rein in Russia's tycoons.

President Yeltsin was not prepared, however, to succumb to the communists by giving way to Primakov. The president (and his daughter and chief confidante Mrs. Tanya Dyachenko) struck back in June 1999 by dismissing Primakov as Prime Minister despite howls of outrage from the western media.

The dismissal was effected by the president despite his weakened political position due to the support that he received from Vladimir Putin, the director of the FSB - the successor to the KGB - which had been a principal source of power for Primakov. In August 1999 in another shock move, he elevated the obscure Putin to the position of Prime Minister, and shortly thereafter designated him as his successor.

The western media predictably condemned President Yeltsin's rapid turnover of governments as a glaring vindication of their perspective that the Russian leader had been profoundly unfit to rule Russia. However, the positive ramification of Yeltsin's action was that they effectively (and ironically) discredited the extremist parties in the Duma. While communist parliamentary deputies vehemently and publicly denounced Yeltsin, they more often than not capitulated to the president by confirming his various nominees for prime minister. This malleability was due to the fact the communists' self-interested deputies were overly keen to avoid early parliamentary elections and subsequently forego the very generous financial benefits and perks that came with parliamentary office. By calling the communists' bluff (and Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats' (sic)), Yeltsin was able to discredit and hence marginalize them.

Putin

Thus when parliamentary elections were held in December 1999, Russians at last took advantage of their democratic franchise by voting for a moderate political party, the Kremlin backed 'Unity' Party. This new party's strength was based on the support that it received from regional leaders in return for Kremlin patronage. Unity's electoral success gave Yeltsin the confidence to resign in favour of Prime Minister Putin (who became Acting President upon Yeltsin's resignation). Putin's recent election in March 2000 to the Presidency of Russia was due to the popularity he achieved for his handling of a re-launched campaign in Chechnya and represents a final triumph for Boris Yeltsin.

As Russia's new president, the challenges that Putin faces are formidable. These challenges include breaking the power of the tycoons and subsequently moving Russia away from an oligarchic capitalist crony dominated economy toward a genuine market economy and rooting out the scourge of Mafia-generated gangsterism. Furthermore President Putin will have to overhaul Russia's collapsed taxation system, thus enabling the state to service its financial commitment and to commence a genuine agrarian reform programme that finally dismantles Stalin's collective farm legacy. As an official who is not drawn from the Yeltsin era's tycoon/crony class, President Putin is subsequently free of the restraints which had impeded Yeltsin, to continue the reform process and lead it to a beneficial conclusion.

Boris the Great

Given the media's relish for ridiculing Yeltsin by highlighting his alcoholism, perhaps he should be named 'Boris the victim of the media'. 'Boris the Great', however is simpler and snappier, moreover more accurate, because Boris Yeltsin demonstrated that the essentials of statesmanship are vision, and the courage and determination to implement one's vision. Similar to Charles de Gaulle, his political hero, Yeltsin refused to surrender his country. What Yeltsin has accomplished for Russia, is as profound as what de Gaulle, Churchill, Roosevelt and Adenauer did for theirs. And by virtue of them being big powers, they have had global implications.

Although it didn't sparkle, Yeltsin took Russia to democracy and consolidated it. He was prepared to stay on at great personal cost to his health, and risk to his political reputation and place in history. Accused of becoming obsessed with holding power, Yeltsin was in fact the first leader in Russian or Soviet history to relinquish power voluntarily.

David Bennett was the co-editor of Serendipity. He is currently the Convener of Historical and Current Affairs Analysis (HCAA) and the International Liaison Officer of the Australian Monarchist League (AML) and Editor of  Social Action Australia Pty Ltd.

Thanks for asking. I was quite productive but also took a 2 hour nap late in the day. Now, I love naps. I think it's good for the soul. It allows me to work late at night when distractions are at their lowest...but my naps almost always come in the late afternoon... so I thought I'd do a little research as to why that may be. I mean, I'm not doing anything bad for my body and I'm tired?

It turns out the body has a very efficient garbage removal system. I'll give you the nutshell version (it's a really big nutshell).

It's called detoxification... better known as detox... a la Brittany Spears and Betty Ford. Look at it this way.

If your dog spilled his water bowl all over the floor, you would need to find something to sop up the water with. Right? So you find a towel to do the job. But if you only had one little towel, you may have to go back to the spill several times to remove it... and eventually, you'd have to get a dry towel to really finish the job.

But what if your dog did that several times a day? Every single day. For years.

Trust me... this is really going somewhere.

Now imagine your liver. That's your towel. The spill is all that tequila, beer, wine, THC, cocaine, magic mushrooms and vodka you ingested last night. But the problem is, your liver can only sop up so much bad stuff... called toxins... that it takes a while before it's all taken care of. Although the liver is the largest organ in our body (contrary to most male thinking), it also has lots of other things to do besides worrying about the 2 bottles of wine you drank last night. And since we only have one liver, when we drink the next day and the next day... you get the idea... the liver works overtime... lots of overtime. With no vacation. To do that takes lots of energy. And since we only have a certain amount of energy... much of that is sucked up by the liver to do its job.

And so we compensate. We drink lots of coffee... supplements... and pharmaceutical drugs because we're so depressed about being tired and unproductive. And guess what? The liver has to do the heavy lifting. It's a giant downward spiral... into hell. OK, maybe not hell.

And sometimes our liver can't catch up. In fact, imagine taking a perfectly good car and driving it non-stop. The engine never cools, and we're too busy driving somewhere so we never change the oil. The driving pros would never do that. Shouldn't drinking pros also know better?

The liver, a most interesting and magnificent piece of engineering, is the same way. In both cases, if we don't give it a rest and get the maintenance done it crashes. This is known as engine seizure or more to the point, cirrhosis of the liver.

Hmmm. I wonder if that could affect productivity?

Alcoholic liver disease. To many people, cirrhosis of the liver is synonymous with chronic alcoholism, but in fact, alcoholism is only one of the causes. Alcoholic cirrhosis usually develops after more than a decade of heavy drinking. The amount of alcohol that can injure the liver varies greatly from person to person. In women, as few as two to three drinks per day have been linked with cirrhosis and in men, as few as three to four drinks per day. Alcohol seems to injure the liver by blocking the normal metabolism of protein, fats, and carbohydrates. (this is taken from the The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases article linked above)

So... why am I tired? I haven't ingested any heavy toxins over the last 7 days. It's because my liver is catching up. It's working overtime to get to where it wants to be... healthy. It's called self-preservation. I'm giving it a rest.

From now on, I'll handle it more like a pro. One would think, I've had enough practice to graduate to that rank.

A few other notes.

In just 7 days, I have easily saved $50-$70... in wine and beer and drinks here and there.

In just 7 days, I've lost 6 pounds. I started at 211 and now sit at 205. My face is slimmer and I don't like like Boris Yeltsin as much.

In just 7 days, god created the world. Imagine how much quicker he would have been if he wasn't drinking?

But I still can't play the piano.

Just two days after Mikhail Gorbachev was re-elected head of the Soviet Communist Party, Boris Yeltsin, president of the Republic of Russia, announces his resignation from the Party. Yeltsin's action was a serious blow to Gorbachev's efforts to keep the struggling Soviet Union together.

In July 1990, Soviet Communist Party leaders met in a congress for debate and elections. Gorbachev, who had risen to power in the Soviet Union in 1985, came under severe attack from Communist Party hard-liners. They believed that his political and economic reforms were destroying the Party's control of the nation. Gorbachev fired back at his critics during a speech in which he defended his reforms and attacked the naysayers as backward-looking relics from the dark past of the Soviet Union. He was rewarded with an overwhelming vote in favor of his re-election as head of the Communist Party. Just two days after that vote, however, Yeltsin shattered the illusion that Gorbachev's victory meant an end to political infighting in the Soviet Union. Yeltsin had been a consistent critic of Gorbachev, but his criticisms stemmed from a belief that Gorbachev was moving too slowly in democratizing the Soviet political system. Yeltsin's dramatic announcement of his resignation from the Communist Party was a clear indication that he was demanding a multiparty political system in the Soviet Union. It was viewed as a slap in the face to Gorbachev and his policies.

During the next year and a half, Gorbachev's power gradually waned, while Yeltsin's star rose. In December 1991, Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union officially dissolved. Yeltsin, however, retained his position of power as president of Russia. In their own particular ways, both men had overseen the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

Yeltsin remained president of Russia until December 31, 1999, when he resigned. Despite his attempts at economic reform, his tenure in office saw the country's economy falter badly, including a near-complete collapse of its currency. His administration was also marked by rampant corruption, an invasion of Chechnya and a series of bizarre incidents involving Yeltsin that were reputedly a result of his alcoholism. Yeltsin's opponents twice tried to impeach him. With his resignation, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became acting president until new elections could be held. On March 26, 2000, Putin became Russia's new president.

"Yeltsin resigns from Communist Party." 2008. The History Channel website. 11 Jul 2008, 10:24 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2726.

1543 - England's King Henry VIII married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr.

1862 - The U.S. Congress authorized the Medal of Honor.

1864 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln witnessed the battle where Union forces repelled Jubal Early's army on the outskirts of Washington, DC.

1941 - Moscow was bombed by the German Luftwaffe for the first time.

1954 - U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a highway modernization program, with costs to be shared by federal and state governments.

2000 - Russia launched the Zvezda after two years of delays. The module was built to be the living quarters for the International Space Station (ISS.)

Russians halt German advance in a decisive battle at Kursk

On this day in 1943, one of the greatest clashes of armor in military history takes place as the German offensive against the Russian fortification at Kursk, a Russian railway and industrial center, is stopped in a devastating battle, marking the turning point in the Eastern front in the Russians' favor.

"Russians halt German advance in a decisive battle at Kursk." 2008. The History Channel website. 11 Jul 2008, 10:27 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6517.

Ferraro named vice presidential candidate

Walter Mondale, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, announces that he has chosen Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate. Ferraro, a daughter of Italian immigrants, had previously gained notoriety as a vocal advocate of women's rights in Congress.

"Ferraro named vice presidential candidate." 2008. The History Channel website. 11 Jul 2008, 10:29 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5173.

Você, amigo botequeiro, que quer fazer uma festinha para as miguxinhas da faculdade mas não sabe cozinhar... Hoje você vai aprender uma receita fácil e prática que deixa todo mundo benloko e o melhor: é baratinho.

Sabe aquele churrasco sem carne da galera? Bom, agora pelo menos você pode colocar uma sobremesa. E compra uns patês, pelo amor de deus!

INGREDIENTES:

- 1 envelope de gelatina (sugiro a de morango e a de uva verde, mas pode ser até de kiwi)

- 2 xícaras (chá) de água quente

- 1 xícara (chá) de vodka fria

- leite condensado à gosto do freguês

MODO DE PREPARO

Primeiro: esteja sóbrio. Bebum na cozinha só serve para abrir a geladeira para pegar cerveja. Depois dissolva a gelatina na vodka, misturando bem para não ficarem aquelas pelotas. Acrescente a água quente, sempre mexendo. Coloque nos copinhos e leve ao congelador primeiro e depois coloque na geladeira. Caso você queira algo mais doce, antes de endurecer de vez, bata com um pouco de leite condensado.

As amiguinhas vão agradecer e, depois de 4 copinhos, vão achar que você é o Brad Pitt. Ou não, depende de você!

PS: Essa receita foi chupinhada daqui

Ein ehemaliger, mittlerweile verstorbener, russischer Präsident und eine junge Indie-Pop Gruppe aus Springfield, Missouri, Amerika. Zwei Vorstellungen könnten wohl kaum konträrer sein, doch bei den vier Jungs von Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin scheint es ein ums andere Mal besser zu funktionieren. Vielleicht liegt es auch nur daran, dass die Zeit der verrückten Bandnamen das Zeitalter der „The“ Bands so langsam abzulösen scheint. Man wird sehen.

Die Entstehungsgeschichte der Band mit dem lustigen Namen (der nach eigenen Angaben keineswegs aus politischen Motiven gewählt wurde) liest sich wie aus einem Lehrbuch für amerikanische High School-Musiker. Vier Jungs lernen sich in der Schule kennen, bemerken ihren ähnlichen Musikgeschmack, gründen eine Band mit dem Ziel, einmal selbst in der Indie-Section des lokalen Plattenladens zu stehen.

Nachdem man die vorherigen Aufnahmen im Rahmen von Broom (2005) selbst an den Mann gebracht hatte und schon als Nachfolger von The Shins gehandelt wurde, war es nur noch eine Frage der Zeit, bis die Plattenfirmen sich darum reißen würden, die Jungspunde fest an sich zu binden. Den Zuschlag bekam letztendlich Polyvinyl, jenes Label, welches unter anderem Architecture In Helsinki ein aufgeräumtes Zuhause bietet und auf dem vor kurzem auch Pershing erschien.

Pershing ist eine Sommerplatte. Man legt sie auf (oder auch ein) und prompt öffnet sich die Wolkendecke am Horizont, um die feinen Sonnenstrahlen hindurch dringen zu lassen. Ein locker-leichter Song folgt hier dem nächsten und irgendwie hat man das Gefühl, dass nicht eines der Stücke mehr als fünf Minuten bis zu seiner Vollendung gebraucht hätte. In die Glue Girls verliebt man sich auf Anhieb, dank der schwungvollen Akustikgitarre, bei Boring Fountain sind es die Bläser, die einem das Stimmungstief auszutreiben wissen. Schnell gewöhnt man sich an den Lo-Fi Sound und aufgrund der eingängigen Melodien bedarf es auch nicht besonders vielen Hördurchgängen, bis man die Songs intus hat. Die Höhepunkte der Scheibe bekommt man eher in der ersten Hälfte zu hören, dafür lauscht man dort aber umso lieber. Meine beiden Lieblinge Modern Mystery und The Beach Song möchte ich an dieser Stelle nicht unerwähnt lassen und als unbedingte Anspieltips vermerken.

Minimalen Punktabzug gibt es allerdings für das Albumcover, dieses sieht nämlich aus, als hätte man einem noch sehr unreifen Familienmitglied vollkommene künstlerische Freiheit gewährt. Man orientiert sich wohl nicht nur auf musikalischer Ebene an den Shins, die in Punkto „worst album cover“ schon einige milestones vorgelegt haben. Aber was solls, denkt sich der Mann von Welt. Es geht hier schließlich um Musik, wer Kunst sehen will, der geht ins Museum oder zur Google Bildersuche.

Text: Max Link

]]> http://nadadeeso.wordpress.com/?p=5 Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:40:51 +0000 Alberto http://nadadeeso.es.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/esnobs/

Snob, snob.ru, Snob TV. En un país con 30 millones de pobres, un señor va a gastar 150 millones de dólares en lanzar una revista, una red social y un canal de televisión dedicados exclusivamente a los millonarios. Mikhail Prokhorov, número 24 en la lista de fortunas de Forbes, es uno de los afortunados que supo estar en el momento y lugar adecuados para pasar de burócrata a magnate con las privatizaciones que Boris Yeltsin procuró para sus amigos al desmantelar la Unión Soviética, y se gusta tanto a sí mismo que no escatima en gastos para que los que son igual de maravillosos que él (aunque sea una décima parte) no se vean en la desagradable situación de compartir entretenimientos con la chusmilla.

No sé si Prokhorov ha decidido gastar ese dinero como una inversión y tiene la certeza de que en los palacetes rusos hay cientos de nuevos millonarios que esperan una revista o una televisión que les diga con qué tienen que entretenerse, qué ropas vestir y qué restaurantes visitar, o en cambio es un capricho, el fichaje de un escolta americano para su CSKA de Moscú que dejará para el año que viene, lo que sí sé es que, por mucho que nos vendan la moto del resurgir de la potencia rusa, ese desprecio tan poco disimulado a los humildes huele mucho a decadencia zarista.

In soviet russia, jokes are so dirty that even Bill Clinton blushes

(Boris Yeltsin & Bill Clinton)

picture: dunno source, via our lolcat builder. lol caption: boogerhead

» Recaption This

Hoy 23 de Abril de 2008 se cumple el primer aniversario de la muerte del ex-presidente de la Federación Rusa Boris Yeltsin. Casualmente, desde su muerte las ventas de vodka ruso han descendido un 73% y las de otros licores de alta graduación entre un 25% y un 35%.

Nacido en 1931 Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin fue el primer presidente de Rusia tras la desintegración de la URSS. Ocupó el puesto entre 1991 y 1999, cuando democráticamente eligió como su sucesor hasta las limpísimas elecciones de 2000 a Vladimir Putin.

Las luces altas de Boris Yeltsin (Boris Yeltsin's highlights)

Será siempre recordado por su papel en el intento de golpe de estado de Agosto de 1991, pero también por sus cuestionables decisiones económicas, con el fantasma de la corrupción siempre cerca. Además ocupó Chechenia y criticó la decisión de la ONU de intervenir en Kosovo.

Como no, también será recordado siempre por fundar la asociación A. A. (Alcohólicos Anónimos), así como las marcas de vodka "El ruso feliz", "Borrachovski" y "Vodklinton", siendo ésta última muy consumida entre las becarias.

Yeltsin murió de problemas cardiacos y fallo multiorgánico a los 76 años.

Boris Yeltsin. R.I.P.

- Boris Yeltsin en la Wikipedia.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1123338&w=425&h=350&fv=] from watchedbylarko.vodpo

Love me, love my home state: a T-shirt homage to the greatness of Oregon (via this).

Bonus props to Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, a band I like (in addition to its name-checking of everyone's favorite former president of Russia) because they have a song called "Oregon Girl." In my deluded little T-centric world, I like to think that my old non-Oregon boyfriends think of me fondly when they hear it, a small tear perhaps escaping as they reminisce.