Duly Noted: More Judicial Madness
From the desk of George Handlery on Sun, 2009-05-17 10:26
1. Those who cared to watch were impressed by the May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow. (Russia wishes to have its own day and does not commemorate on the 8th.) The Putin & Medvedev duo flexed muscle to make a point. Russia is ready to respond to “any aggression”. (Meant is the sleeping West.) The recent “victory” against Georgia was to underline the point. The show also prompts reflections. P&M wish to restore their Russia to what amounts to Soviet grandeur. Soviet might was only possible because the Lenin-Stalin inspired dictatorship could impose burdens and replace lacking means by sacrificing the “mass” subjected to its fiat. Under today’s conditions, the pursuit of this policy implies the continued acceptance of backwardness in every area except the military one. Postponed democratization is another prize to pay for a dominant international role. Accepting this political and developmental cost – regardless of the apparent consent of the masses – means that the weakness of late Tsarism and Sovietism is tolerated and perpetrated. The upshot is a dictatorship with impressive fangs that suffers from a weakness of its material foundations.
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