Russian Manifesto, long and probably useless

[Marcel Popescu]

From: "Fyodor" <fygrave at tigerteam.net>

> Wrong. Having russian background I guess I have more clear understanding
> what these guys are trying to say: The government is definetely
> ineffective in protecting its citizen, providing the social wealthfare
> to them and such, but on the other hand the government corruption, deep
> involvement with crimilal circles and udertable deals with big foreign
> corporations bring the country into the situation when the rulling top
> of the country is having/sharing a huge amount (can't bring any number) of
> all the profits, while the rest of population (especially pensioners in
> russia (people of age of 50 and above, who are brought up in
> post-socialist environment and are totally incapable to adopt to new
> environment)) are thrown and maintained in poverty.

I understand that, but I thought having *incompetent* corrupt people is
better than having *competent* ones! Who said "let's be happy that we don't
have all the government that we're paying for" (or something like that)? The
flaw here is the idea that the government COULD be a good thing, provided
that the governors are competent. I disagree with that.

> > is? Correct! More socialism! Why the heck would I do anything with my
> > resources, if almost all the revenue from it would be divided among the
> > vodka-drinking idiots of the country? (Well, I know, the new man and
stuff.)
>
> not all are vodka drinking idiots. but your statement makes sense. :-)

I'm not saying that all russians are such. (Not that I love them, being from
an ex-satellite...) Only that a significant number are (just like a
significant number of Americans are "couch potatoes"), and having to share
my earnings with them is a big disincentive.

> What's worse, is that it's been observed in some country side areas,
> when one guy is managing to do good on his land, the others get jealous
> or something, and his house could get burnt eventually with no reason..
> happened a few times a few years ago.

Yep. As Ian Clarke (the initiator of Freenet) said, Americans look at the
big mansion on the hill and say "one day I'll have one of those", while
Irish (or Romanians, or Russians...) say "one day we'll burn that
sonofabitch".

> Come on. Keep in mind that this statement was written by 'a party of
> pensioners'. Which means by people in age of 50 and above with strong
> socialist background. They are trying to find a solution to the problem,
> the only problem here, is that they still apply old patterns to it.

That's what I was objecting to :) The solution is obvious: capitalism. The
real one, not the fascist version.

> > Of course, who cares about the fact that Russia is just a small part of
the
> > Union?
>
> Union? Which Union? I doubt russia is welcomed to European Union (update
> me if I am wrong) and there's no former Soviet Union either. More over
> the Union of Idependent Countries, seems to be getting gone piece by
> piece, at least now you need to proper visa if you want to visit Russia
> from one of the 'former' republics.

Really? I didn't know that. Anyway, being old people and so on, I am sure
they are nostalgic about the One Big Union.

> whatever.. hope my comments are helpful ;-)

Well, at least there's two of us <g>

Mark