At the level of state leadership, there are no better international exponents of sensible Conservatism than the leaders of the Czech Republic have been. As to Eurabia, it’s a Russian who wrote in Pravda recently, “The true responsibility of the Rus, of the Russian peoples, is to save Europe and the West from itself and from the anti-Christian [snip] and Islamic scourge that the West is rotting of, like a gangrened alcoholic, dying a slow withering, rotting death.”- - - - - - - - -
As to economic principles, Poland has two personal tax rates: 18% and 32%, a 19% corporate tax, no real estate tax, and a 22% VAT. “Capitalist” America will institute, as of 2011, marginal income tax rates for the upper middle class at 50%-58% in 39 states, and 40%+ in the others. That’s not counting Social Security taxes, special surtaxes on the “rich,” 10% VAT that most of the states now aim for, high real estate taxes, and an average corporate tax rate of 39.3%. And half of the population, consisting mainly of “minorities” imported and domestic, does not pay any income taxes. Guaranteeing a large pool of voters for The One.
Poland’s taxes are relatively high for the region, if a distant dream for a Belgian or American. Bulgaria has a 10% flat income tax, Russia — 13%, Lithuania — 15%, Romania — 16%, Slovakia — 19%, Latvia — 23%. That’s freedom, properly understood.
But freedom has other important dimensions too. The post-communist ruling elites here have not engaged in the favorite treason of their Western counterparts: population replacement. Even though neighborhood grocery shops in Prague are operated by Vietnamese, and various exotics sell cut-rate, Asian import clothing at outdoor bazaars in Poland, this is a minuscule percentage of the population. The people here, everywhere from Latvia to Slovakia, are still repulsing the minoritarian tyranny imposed by the ruling elites on weak, brainwashed societies farther West.
It’s an indescribable pleasure to walk among a throng of people in a large public venue, and experience none of the blessings of diversity. No burkas. No “youths.” No hateful stares of fifth columnists from “Asia.” No black gangs on the prowl for white victims. No Kevlar vests on schoolchildren. Young lovers walking safely at 03:00. No “undocumented workers” driving death cars with no license and no resistance to alcohol. No pampered immigrant jihadis driving death cars with a license and no alcohol. No gays exchanging body fluids in public. No gay pride parades. No transvestite police persons. No Arabic prayer incantations wafting through the golden light of dusk…
Read the rest at the Brussels Journal.
24 comments:
“The affair connected to the financial excesses and nepotism practiced by British parliamentarians has shown a radical change of values in Western societies,“ writes the noted (and female) journalist Aleksandra Rybińska in the prestigious Polish newspaper, Rzeczpospolita (8) “Tolerance as the highest value pushed out from the public life other principles of its functioning – honesty, integrity, conscientiousness. It’s not important if you steal and cheat; it’s important that you like Negroes.”
Virtues. How to explain virtues to a white Western MSM pundit for whom only the opiates of nondiscrimination, racial self-abasement and hypocritical “equality” are virtues? How to explain virtues to a teenager who grew up with rap on his ear buds, speech codes in the classroom, “cool” as the supreme norm and Obama as The One? How to explain that there are qualities far more despicable than racism, let alone “racism”? It’s not possible.
How is it that people have forgotten that: RACISM IS A RIGHT.
Anyone has a personal right to be racist. They may even express those views publicly through protected speech. However, it does not prevent other members of the community from shunning that person or boycotting their business so as to demonstrate collective disapproval of such actions. None of this even addresses the fact that racism has been so distorted into a "whites only" crime whereby malefactors like Jeremiah Wright, Sonia Sotomayor or Islam, in general, are given a free pass.
It is no longer remembered that the social class known as "nobility" had nobility.
Queen Elizabeth II's spawn have pretty much put the lie to that.
Just like the racial or orificial minorities that exercise the privilege of paralyzing Western society now.
Which, as with racism, returns us to the old saw about how: JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO SOMETHING DOES NOT MAKE IT THE RIGHT THING TO DO.
A “Sarmatian” is unemployable (11) in a modern corporation and useless as a Western politician, because there are things he won’t do to gain money, status or power. He will not stab in the back. He will not betray his friends or his country. He will not import and pump up “minorities” for either the true Machiavellian political advantage or the faked economic one. He will not rise when political Chicago mafiosi enter. He will not steal even when no one is watching. He will starve rather than suck up. And so he starves – and the West is much the poorer for it.
This holds for most people of virtue in the modern Western world. Few things sum it up better than the sardonic saying: NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.
All of the historically decent aspects of Western civilization have been weaponized and turned against their practitioners. None epitomize this better than Muslims. As Fjordman notes (per Raymond Kraft), in his essay "Reccommendations for the West":
The Islamic movement "has turned the civility of the United States and Europe into a weapon and turned it against us. It has weaponized niceness, it has weaponized compassion, it has weaponized the fundamental decency of Western Civilization. We have become too civilized to defeat our enemies, perhaps too civilized to survive.".
I can relate to what he is saying. A couple of years ago I went to Riga. After a couple of hours of walking around and sightseeing, I noticed that I felt very good. It was not just the usual feeling of elation and being energized by visiting and exploring a new place. There was an undertone to it - a feeling of complete comfort and well-being. I simply entered my comfort zone and started feeling very relaxed, which created a pleasurable sensation I was trying to diagnoze. After a while, it hit me: only white people! It felt like childhood - being surrounded by people who look and behave like me. What a great sensation it is and how we cannot appreciate it until it is gone. It's like health - you don't know that you have it until you've lost it.
OK, it is quite idyllic around here right now, but the same amount of EU influence or media money is at work to convince us that the best way to go - is to follow the West in its suicidal endeavour. Any new EU rule can start breaking our neck...
We fight back in comments in "our" media and have the decay of the West in front of our eyes as a valid argument. But no concentrated effort comes from the "West" itself so far - to outbalance that and give us more backing in this fight. So far we have a backing from our own immigrants. But not really from the "West".
Think of the relatively low investition in keeping our present status quo and the ensuing effect back in the West.
I miss a larger strategic thinking.
As to Eurabia, it’s a Russian who wrote in Pravda recently, ...
More from that Pravda essay:
"American Fundamentalist nonsense about Russia being the Magog (or Gog, take your choice) of ancient times, a set of beliefs that came to fruition in the 1950s with aid and approval of the CIA and NSA, as it helped radicalize the base against the Soviets,..."
The essay comes from the blog Mat Rodina, written by Stanislav Mishin.
Mishin obviously has a different project than the one I have -- different ethnic group, different mythology etc. -- but I agree with him about a lot. E.g. what he says about "American fundamentalist nonsense". I have read through several of his blog articles, with great interest, and they convey clearly the idea that Russians are more immune to the Western culture of death, than any other white people. And that Orthodox Christianity is the only vital form of Christianity. If only we, the Westerners, could talk about ourselves and our society in the way Mishin is able to talk about Russia. No not in the details of it, not necessarily a Christian great myth etc., but in the general thrust, and most importantly in the constructive self-confidence expressed.
These are the articles I read, all of which I recommend, all of which are recent and still up on his front page:
"The Modern West, A Culture of Death"
"Putin's First Move, Freeing Russia"
"Three Deadly Western Imports"
"What I Believe, What I Stand For"
As Mishin writes "I am not a leftist in the American sense nor a rightist [Anastasia Rand took things to illogical extremes]. I do not fit into such molds."
He's a true Solzhenitsyn style Russian nationalist. But what I like the most is his sense for the importance of the overall mythological narrative for a people. In this way I can see myself in him. Only that he's better off than me. In my case the current belief system of my society will have to collapse before any constructive reconstruction can take place. My people are too deeply invested in the paradigm that is killing us -- they even consider it a cornucopia of unlimited success. So there's no way to reason the Westerners out of this. The belief system has to die the death from the weight of its own seeds of destruction.
It's very interesting what Stanislav Mishin writes about the Orthodox view on Just War:
Over all, war is murder, under all circumstances, as an Orthodox Christian, we do not buy into the Augustinian theory of Just War, all war is murder/evil. However, as often in this fallen world, it is a lesser of evils and must thus be prosecuted to the extreme, so that it does not drag out longer then need be nor must be repeated.
And in The Modern West, A Culture of Death he writes:
The foundation of this was laid by the Augustinian theories of Just War. This created an atmosphere that condoned murder, even if under strict circumstances. Do I say that the Eastern Church has not gone to war? Of course not, or rather the Church has never gone to war but the people have. However, these were never Jihads or their lesser versions: Crusades. Indeed the wars that the Orthodox peoples have fought have always been viewed as a sin, as the shedding of human blood is a grave sin, regardless, but in a fallen world is often necessary to prevent an even greater evil. To that end, an Orthodox soldier who has shed blood is unclean and thus must cleanse himself through prayer and fasting, seeking the forgiveness of God for what was done. Conversely, this may also explain why our wars are so vicious. As the Orthodox soldiers know they are committing a sin, they are repulsed by what they do and seek to end it as fast and as permanently as possible, which in itself becomes a much more bloody affair. Do not confuse this with the actions of the Red Army...
I see this as a parallel to Baron Bodissey's criticism of Western Christianity, where he wrote:
"Christian ethics, originally intended to be a code followed by the individual believer, was extended to the workings of the State. But a fundamental error is embedded in the concept: Christian ethical principles don’t scale up."
The way it is described by Mishin, the wisdom expressed by the Baron above is already built into Orthodox Christianity. Christian principles do not apply to actions of the State, such a warfare. However, when returning from the war, the Orthodox soldier has to, as an individual, "cleanse himself through prayer and fasting, seeking the forgiveness of God for what was done".
In the same article he writes also things that I disagree with or do not care for. But there are enough gems to make his writing very inspiring. E.g. this "The first victims of Hitler, after all, were fellow Germans". A wisdom expressed far too rarely.
Mishin might be right that the fallacy of composition of the Western Christianity -- in applying Christian principles to the State level -- started with the conceptualization of the Just War. And which subsequently led to such things as the inquisition and, through centuries of transformation, today the welfare state, universalist human rights, our predilection for perpetual limited war etc.
CS: "I have read through several of his blog articles, with great interest, and they convey clearly the idea that Russians are more immune to the Western culture of death, than any other white people. And that Orthodox Christianity is the only vital form of Christianity. If only we, the Westerners, could talk about ourselves and our society in the way Mishin is able to talk about Russia."
Russia is full of non-white and non-Christian people. Some of them are refugees from the former republics, Vietnam, and China. But most of them are native to the Russian territory, like Tatars, for example - a lot of them getting radicalized and increasingly more hostile toward ethnic Russians. I often encounter these people on Russian forums and am familiar with their grievances and discontent. I just don't see how Russia can become the defender of Western civilization unless and until it solves its own hostile minorities problem in a permanent way. This is otherwise a brewing problem, all the while Russian elites are engaging in multiculturalism games right now, just like their Western counterparts.
You might be right about Eastern Orthodox Christianity being a more viable form of Christianity and less prone to suicidal tendencies. There are all indications that Russia might be undergoing a Christian revival. Eastern Christians interpret "love your enemies" to refer to personal enemies, not the enemy of the people. On another thread, I cited Metropolitan Filaret (an important 19th century Christian authority) who said: Love your enemies, kill your Fatherland's enemies, shun the enemies of God. IMO, nothing suicidal about this.
Felicie: I just don't see how Russia can become the defender of Western civilization unless...
Felicie, you need to pay attention. What you suggest here is an impossibility. Russia and Western civilization are distinct and disjoint from each other. There's no way Russia could defend or "save" Western civilization. The whole idea is a contradiction in terms. Wherever Russia enters Western civilization yields.
Since the whole idea of Russia as a "saviour" of the Western civilization (both by proponents and opponents) is so common -- surely molded from the thinking pattern of America as the current "saviour" -- I have addressed this misconception here and here.
And as Mishin declares in his sidebar: "Thus, it is quite obvious that we, the Russian people are not, have never been, nor ever shall be, a part of the West."
Felicie: Russia is full of non-white and non-Christian people...
And for the very opposite reason of why the West is so. The Russian empire expanded into and conquered lands of non-white and non_christian people. That's a whole different story. And Russia is today the only powerful country where white man is still the boss, where white man and Christianity is still the unchallenged ideal. As I have written:
White Nationalism is a weak concept for weak and defeated people. What we need is something strong. To find what that is we should look at Russia. Russia is a multiethnic country, but still entirely Russian. This since Russian culture is dominant, normative and nobody questions it, and it does not blink. Therefore the different peoples within Russia (and the old Russian empire) do not question this, not any more than most Westerners today question their quest for "universal goodness". As described at this site by e.g. Russkiy, Khazars, Tartars, etc. obey and submit to this. Even Muslims find it natural to convert to Christianity in this context.
That's the way!
However, even so it's possible that Russia will be forced to change it's strategy. That in the face of radicalization of minority groups -- through global influence -- it will have to make itself less multiethnic. But Russia is also fully mentally prepared for such a step, unlike any Western country.
Felicie: all the while Russian elites are engaging in multiculturalism games right now, just like their Western counterparts
Not at all. In Russia you only find some segments of the "cultural elites" engaging in this -- an effect of their freedom of expression. But unlike in the West, nothing at the political level -- and this is one reason why Westerners hate Putin: for not submitting to these suicidal Western ideals.
As for the rest of what you write, we agree.
CS: "And as Mishin declares in his sidebar: 'Thus, it is quite obvious that we, the Russian people are not, have never been, nor ever shall be, a part of the West.'"
I am very well familiar with this point of view. I have read a lot of Dugin and other "Eurasionists" (and Solzhenitsyn :)). I have also been reading Stas Mishin's blog for a while, and know approximately where he stands on various issues. His position is somewhat unusual in that being patriotic and critical of the West, he is also critical of islam (this is why he is routinely accused of being a Jew, which he is not). Much more commonly, however, people tend to combine pro-Russian, patriotic views with an idealization of Islam (which is a knee-jerk reaction) and stress that Islam is indigenous to Russia and a sister religion. There are a lot of crazy history revisionists that claim that the ancient Mongol-Tatar empire was incredibly advanced, invented everything under the sun and had a lot of resplendent cities that have now disappeared. I don't know if you have read any Nikolai Gumilev - an incredibly interesting and original civilization historian (the Russian equivalent of Spengler). Even he had a pro-Islamic, pro-Asian bias.
I am pro-Russian and can, in many instances, understand why Russians are critical of the West and the U.S. It was on the Russian Internet that I first read about the history of banking and the central role of financial elites in today's politics. That was already 10 years ago. Now it has become a hot topic on the Western internet. And it's understandable. When you are hit over the head with your world collapsing around you, this forces you to be a critical thinker. Now the same is beginning to happen in the West, and I am glad of it.
However, I disagree that Russia is not the West. I think it's a special subset or variety of the West, a different evolutional branch. It is different, but it is still the West, with its roots in the Byzantine empire.
Czechmade, sorry, I didn't understand your point.
To add to my reply to CS. It is not that I flat out disagree with you about Russia's role in the future, it is more that I am more cautious and less optimistic. I think you might be overstating Russia's ideological and cultural strength vis-a-vis multiculturalism and globalism. I am more optimistic about Eastern Europe - the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic, Belorussia, and Ukraine (even though Ukraine is having its own Tatar problems). I hope that I am wrong about this, and I would like your more optimistic point of view to be correct. But I just don't know... Moscow streets are full of non-white faces - this is no Riga or Tallin. Russia is a multicultural empire by its very composition. Some peoples who live on the Russian territory, like the various Ugro-Finnish groups are culturally compatible and no problem at all. Others are both hostile and incompatible. And you can't deport them. They are indigenous to their territories. I would deport those who can be deported and re-settle the indigenous groups so that they live more compactly. I would basically encourage them to stay within their historical territories as homogeneous populations that are bilingual and bicultural (their own language/culture and Russian) and discourage economic migration.
But one thing you are other Europeans need to understand is that there is a difference between the strength of the Russian ethnic identity and a small European one. To a Swede or Czech, another Swede or Czech is a blood brother. Russians, on the other hand, often express their national solidarity in cultural terms (religion, language, etc...). Partly, this could be because they have been, as subjects or a multicultural empire, brainwashed with a "culturalistic" doctrine for much longer, and it has "payed off." Partly, it could also be because they are, given their history, more ethnically heterogeneous than other Europeans, and this might have weakened their sense of ethnic identity.
I thought you both read in German. The link shows a new study by a German professor from Rostock claiming the racial concept of whiteness comes from islamic sources.
Surprizingly the black Africans were more often free men in the Roman Empire than slaves. Same for the Greeks or Christians. They did not grow with our idea of whiteness and blackness.
If true, it is great. We worked for decades with a concept which is not really ours.
As for Byzantine heritage I think we should focus on that first and then read our Russians. We might have a more subtle tool, even a key. The triangle offers more solutions...
Felicie,
Thanks for your interesting comments.
First of all regarding Czechmade, his whole point is in pulling the racist card when hearing of Taking Care of Your Own. In addition to he seems to suggest that "You are like a Muslim" if you do not adhere to multiculturalist sentiments.
Regarding Russia, I seriously cannot tell. There are obviously different forces in action. Russia's multiethnic society in combination with its cultural self-confidence have served them well up until now. But what will happen with the global influence of radicalization of minority groups is an open question. Their cultural self-confidence is still strong card for them, and they are the best chance for a vital and strong Christianity. I think Russia is too strong to fall apart, but it might face too many internal problems to be any geopolitical significance in Europe.
I do not share your optimism regarding the other Eastern European countries though. Unlike Russia they are weak and scattered tiny nations, and we do not see them able to project substantial power (unless there would evolve a new Greater Poland). Surely the countries you mention will be the better place to be the coming two decades, but then what?
Regarding Russia belonging to the West. Yes, it does belong to the West in terms of having its roots in Greece, i.e. in the Byzantine empire. That's why it's referred to as the Third Rome, obviously. But it is excluded from the Western civilization as incepted by the Carolingians. In fact, since the birth of Western Christianity, the Byzantine empire was considered the East.
This was my fourth comment. Any other counter-argument will be answered at my blog.
Re: Russia
The Russians themselves, and Mishkin repeatedly, say that they are not “European.” And there is something a little off-putting, at least for me, in their extreme chauvinism in which the religion and nationalism are wrapped into one in a way that “Europe” forsook 300 years ago.
But they have several admirable advantages over us.
First, it’s their leadership. One may despise the ethics of Putin @ Co. but would it that any Western country had a leadership as patriotic, as devoted to the national interest of their own people. Putin will go down in Russian history as one of the 5-6 greatest Russians who ever lived, no matter the heaps of invective dumped on him – often for a good reason –in the West.
Second, it’s their toughness. There is an interesting application of that to our current economic twilight, developed by Dmitri Orlov here: http://energybulletin.net/node/23259
Third, it’s dislike for Islam, homosexuality, feminism, PC and other Western afflictions. Russia does have 25 million Muslims who breed at twice the rate of Russians, but ultimately, the Russians will do what they have to do not to be submerged in that. Not much of a chance of Sweden or UK doing that.
George Friedman of Stratfor predicts a rosy future on Russia’s periphery to Poland and Turkey, but not China. Poland has stood up to Russia successfully in the past (including 1919 -21), and there is a chance that it will head a coalition that will contain Russia on its Western periphery.
Commenters are limited to four comments per post.
Check with Conservative Swede, but I believe he offered to take the discussion to his blog if people reached their limit here.
We may in the future be able to offer a separate forum, but for the time being, please take Con Swede up on his offer.
“The true responsibility of the Rus, of the Russian peoples, is to save Europe and the West from itself and from the anti-Christian [snip] and Islamic scourge that the West is rotting of, like a gangrened alcoholic, dying a slow withering, rotting death.”
What an ironic word picture as it best describes Russians themselves, especially Russian men who are dying early deaths of various causes, most alcohol related. this is expecting the sicker to heal the sick.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2009%20-%20Spring/full-Eberstadt.html
"Economy will crash
Depopulation with Russian characteristics—population decline powered by an explosive upsurge of illness and mortality—is altogether more forbidding in its economic implications, not only forcing down popular well-being today, but also placing unforgiving constraints on economic productivity and growth for tomorrow.
...upsurge of illness and mortality, furthermore, has been disproportionately concentrated among men and women of working age—meaning that Russia’s labor force has been shrinking more rapidly than the population overall".
Ergo there is no demographic cavalry coming from Russia to save the white (Christian) man. As for western values at their best, Russia has instead been the main flag carrier for the most toxic effluvium invented and propagated by western intellectuals, communist totalitarianism.
In fact, they are a people who have never achieved a single form of government that is not repressive and retarded regarding human rights. With 60 million deaths on their ledger and more hundreds of millions imprisoned physically and spiritually for decades, (The Black Book of Communism by Stephane Courtois) and widespread sentiment for those "good old days", a less qualified people for saving western values worth saving there could not be.
They are not reliable even on the Muslim problem. Putin razed Chechnya for private political gain (in his eternal strong man act) but has done nothing to stop Muslim expansion into what were non-Muslim areas of Russia. Meanwhile, he arms Muslims around the world for money and to dig at the United States. He's no net decreaser of Muslim terrorism and seems to think he can sic this scorpion on the West without being bitten himself.
On the other hand Russia has the crucial advantage of knowing that it has serious existential problems. In the European Union, by contrast, corruption and self destruction are seen as positives if they are even acknowledged at all. In these crucial respects Russia still has a healthier civil society than that morally exalted Shining City on the Hill - The European Union.
Likely talking to myself now, but here it goes:
HH, Europe is being killed by its leftist leaders who appear to have achieved (through leftist control of public education and the media for decades) a critical mass of indoctrinated and fattened on state handouts sheep too sluggish to save themselves, "apres moi le deluge" types many of whom aborted their children so have no investment in the future.
Russians though freer than ever before (still far from free as we understand it) are killing themselves privately through cultural dependence on alcohol after decades of state killing and control. Russian women's abortion rate remains among the highest in the world.
I don't think there's much to choose between the two collapsing systems.
The only people who have a realistic hope of pulling at least themselves out of the tailspin (though likely not Europe this time) are still Americans.
There's a large minority, maybe 40% who are conservative and still patriotic, with many of them ARMED, a critical difference from their European and Russian peers. (The first thing a socialist soon to be totalitarian society does is disarm its citizens). All these conservatives need is to wake up 20% of the middle mush brains to have a fighting chance against the committed lefties who probably number about 30%. I'm of the school that believes the lefties have to be thrown out first before any progress can be made on the Immigration file, especially Muslims.
There are signs the giant is stirring. Middle class Americans are organizing protests as they never have before, called "Tea Parties" to protest the tax burden the Left is imposing along with its socialist policies. The brown stuff is also hitting the fan at townhalls about the health care revamp which is another purely socialist power grab. The shill Obama's ratings are dropping, unbearable for such a pathological narcissist so he will make more mistakes, show himself for what he is.
This is more citizen rebellion than is visible anywhere else and holds out a slender hope of at least part of the United States remaining a sanctuary for western ways.
I would like to remind any Russophiles that you know very little of what is going on there as the glasnost window is closing whereas you know every last wart on America's backside thanks to logarithmically greater openness and a traitor leftist class that searches for and publishes dirt to discredit the country they want to bring low as the prime obstacle their world socialism project.
Just as one example, a population that drinks as heavily as the Russians do inevitably has a large number of children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, as North American Natives do. Since there is a heavy association with mental retardation and criminality, white Russians are probably matching any inter-marrying Muslim population for mentally defective children. Russian orphanages are hellholes where normal children deserted by drunkard parents are mixed in with the incorrigible FAS kids. This is just one tiny tip of an enormous iceberg of social pathology that you are not allowed to see. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's not there.
You cannot realistically compare a partially totalitarian and open western society because you are missing so much information on the totalitarian side.
laine, the article you linked to paints an incredibly grim picture with respect to Russia's future. I also agree with your previous synopsis.
I especially agree with your earlier observation:
They are not reliable even on the Muslim problem. Putin razed Chechnya for private political gain (in his eternal strong man act) but has done nothing to stop Muslim expansion into what were non-Muslim areas of Russia. Meanwhile, he arms Muslims around the world for money and to dig at the United States. He's no net decreaser of Muslim terrorism and seems to think he can sic this scorpion on the West without being bitten himself. [emphasis added]
It is why I refuse to consider Putin as anything but another disaster for the Russian people and the world at large. His continuing triangulation against Western interests and global security in general place him squarely at odds with America's own priorities.
While Putin certainly cannot be blamed for Russia's endemic alcoholism, he is nevertheless responsible for perpetuating an extremely cynical and dream-killing oligarchic structure that continues to grind the average Russian only slightly less worse than the Communist boot heel did in its time. By fostering cronyism and inadequately assuring effective rule of law, Putin becomes part of the problem and not the solution.
Your closing comments about glasnost and the gigantic skeleton of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome that lurks in Russia's closet are spot on. There is simply no way to get really accurate data out of the Russian cesspit and one is almost obliged to think that it has to be much worse than whatever available figures make it out to be.
@Takuan Seiyo, others
If I may interject some facts about Russian Islam: first, there are not 25 million but 12 million, which itself is down from 14 million and that takes into account the positive birth rates and immigration.
The simple fact is that the Church is converting faster than they arrive. Beslan, after the terror attack, went from 36% Islamic to 13% with mass conversions. Even the muslim children who were killed were buried by Orthodox priests in Orthodox cemetaries with the full approval of their relatives.
In Tartarstan, almost half the Tartars are Orthodox and Russians make up more than 1/3rd of the population. This led the chief mufty to recently complain to Prime Minister Putin that it was not fair that everyone is converting to Orthodoxy and no one is to Islam. Furthermore, the Muslim elders are keeping their Tartar hotheads quiet...they are surrounded by Orthodox Christians on all sides and half their own population is Orthodox...if they started a Jihad, they would be exterminated (the Islamics that is) in very short order.
Even the majority of the Chechens have had Jihad burnt out of them after their population sufferred some 20% casualty rate.
However, our greatest power as a people is our ability to absorb everyone and yet remain Russian. In the last census, which asked only how one felt he belonged to which ethnicity, 86% of the population listed themselves as Russians (ok, there is a colony of elves in St.Pete and a colony of hobbits in Rostov). The other 180 ethnic groups make up the remainder of the 14% and most live in Siberia where they will never leave Russia as they know China would grab them and they dispise the Chinese from when China held southern Siberia and massacred them.
@laine
First, the Russian death age for men has risen from a low of 54 to 65 and is continueing to rise year on year as the state invests heavily in medical equipment and education. That is a 20.3% rise in 7 years.
Equally, the Russian birthrate has been climbing for the past 7 years with 2 children almost the norm and many having quite a few more. I have more than 2, most of my cousins have at least 2 and a friend of mine has just had his 5th.
Further, the Russian economy has started to come out of its recession, following France and Germany, while the rest are rotting, even with fake statistics.
As for drinking, that is also a myth of American proportions. According to the UN on per capita Alcohol consumption, Russia is #12 (US is #19) on the heavist drinkers and there is not that big of a difference between the two.
@liane
Meanwhile, he arms Muslims around the world for money and to dig at the United States. He's no net decreaser of Muslim terrorism and seems to think he can sic this scorpion on the West without being bitten himself.
If you mean arming Iran and Syria as the whole Muslim world, than I guess you are right. Now let us compare that to America, who actively arms: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Yemen, Omen, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tunisia, Morocoo, Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania and various other smaller muslim states and NATO as a whole who has spent quite some effort arming the Chechen islamics and flooding them with Bin Ladin's arabs. Wow, what a comparison....you are right, Russia is definitly "leading" the Jihad.
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