January 20, 2005
WHO HARRY SHOULD HAVE DRESSED AS (David Hill, The Bronx:)
Stalin back in favour as new statue goes up in Moscow (The Scotsman, 20 Jan 2005)
A NEW statue of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin is to be erected inPosted by Orrin Judd at January 20, 2005 9:31 AM
Moscow, returning his once-ubiquitous image to the streets after an
absence of four decades, a top city official said yesterday.Since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, a number of Soviet
symbols - including the national anthem and an army flag - have been
restored to use, reflecting widespread nostalgia for the communist era.But the rehabilitation of Stalin - denounced by Soviet leaders after his
death in 1953 for encouraging a cult of personality and killing millions
of real and imagined opponents - had remained out of bounds. Statues of
him were removed from Moscow in the 1960s.
Harry should have dressed as Caligula.
Posted by: Dave W. at January 20, 2005 5:02 PMIs it my imagination or does Putin seem to be hemorrhaging IQ points? He tries to have it both ways on Iraq. Then, he tries to undermine a democratic election in the Ukraine but does it in the most inept way possible so that even the EU was forced to see through it. Now, he is wrapping himself in the mantle of one of the greatest mass murderers of world history.
Putin doesn't have a unified party, army, intelligence service and apparat all of whose members live in quaking fear of whether he had a bad bagel in the morning. I cannot imagine how he feels he can take control over the country in the way that he feels he needs to. Power is simply too dispersed and too many ordinary Russians particularly in the cities will have zero tolerance for excessive nonsense.
His constant failures at adventurism do not enhance his reputation at home.
Posted by: Bart at January 21, 2005 6:43 PMRussia has mistakenly thought itself a great nation for a century now.
Posted by: oj at January 21, 2005 7:06 PMRussia is a great nation, cursed with terrible leadership, not unlike China, India, Brazil and Mexico.
Posted by: Bart at January 22, 2005 6:26 AMIt's a dying nation that's been on a downhill slope for eight decades plus.
Posted by: oj at January 22, 2005 8:52 AMLet's see, Peter the Great, and ah, ah, and, ah, oh ya, no, and ah, hmmmmmmmm. Russia, a nothing of a nation, w/a fleeting moment of potential that vanished like the morning mist upon the Volga.
Posted by: Dave W. at January 22, 2005 11:45 PMDave,
If you're going to be a scientific, mathematical and engineering illiterate at least have the courtesy to keep quiet about it. The US spent a huge amount of treasure and energy to defend ourselves from this 'nation with a fleeting moment of potential' and to this day the Russian nuclear arsenal is generally understood to be our #1 threat.
Posted by: Bart at January 23, 2005 9:16 AM