Translation: Russia Today Hired You To Talk About The Cynicism And Wickedness Of The West (Konstantin von Eggert)

This in about Media, and tagged , , , , , was written by on October 4, 2012 . 58 Comments

This post is a continuation of the last, and can otherwise be called “Konstantin von Eggert: A Case Study In Democratic Journalism (part 2).” Alternatively, one might view it as a refutation of claims that the Kremlin controls or censors the Russian media (Eggert’s own protestations, hilarious and Orwellian in the context of what follows, to […]

Konstantin von Eggert: A Case Study In Democratic Journalism (part 1)

This in about Media, and tagged , , , , was written by on October 2, 2012 . 5 Comments

There is a term on Runet, popularized by the satirical “dissident” Lev Sharansky, called “democratic journalist.” Of course, this term is every bit as satirical as its main propagator.  In the Russian context, it denotes a journalist who is obsessed with free speech, human rights, democracy, the whole turkey. But they are “obsessed” with them in […]

Assange Should Have Picked The Russian Embassy

This in about Politics, and tagged , , , , , was written by on August 16, 2012 . 23 Comments

UK police descend on Assange’s embassy refuge. According to the Ecuadorians, their Embassy was threatened with a revocation of its status as Ecuadorian sovereign territory in the case that President Rafael Correa offers Julian Assange political asylum. This would clear the way for PC Plod could go in and fish out Assange. Presumably this is to avoid breaking […]

Modern Britain In Four Extradition Cases

This in about Politics, and tagged , , , was written by on June 29, 2012 . 1 Comment

Imagine you’re a British extraditions judge and you are asked to rule on the following cases. (1) An oligarch exile who came from a country where he might well have ordered contract murders and is now loudly and implacably opposed to its new President who dispossessed him of his political influence. Although the British establishment considers said country, […]

Will Ecuador Protect Assange From The Empire?

This in about Politics, and tagged , , , , was written by on June 20, 2012 . 16 Comments

So Assange has fled to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, in scenes reminiscent of what happens to dissidents in truly authoritarian countries. (The parallels keep adding up don’t they). Let’s recap. His site kept releasing classified documents, from secretive and typically nasty organizations. Too bad that some of them belonged to the Pentagon and the […]

Assange @RT: Russia Provides A Platform To Western Dissidents

This in about Media, and tagged , , , was written by on April 18, 2012 . 21 Comments

As I noted before, the symmetry is amusing to say the least. Anti-regime characters such as Nemtsov and Navalny, who are marginal in Russia (both in popularity and media presence – as is logical, nothing undemocratic about that), are treated as Genuine Voices of the Russian People by the Western media. In its turn, Russia […]

Chechnya, A Once And Future War?

This in about Geopolitics, and tagged , , , , , was written by on December 5, 2010 . 7 Comments

Truly, if Willian Burns were to issue an anthology of his Moscow cables during his 2005-2008 ambassadorship, I’d seriously consider buying it. Just consider this cable from May 2006, on Chechnya’s “Once and Future War”, a nuanced US view of that conflict and the cynicism and corruption it engendered amongst all its parties. What struck […]

Wikileaks As A Mirror On The West

This in about Politics, and tagged , , , , was written by on December 2, 2010 . 26 Comments

A foreign “subversive” journalist, driven by fevered idealism, publishes reams of leaked internal documents from an Authority that, beneath its carefully positioned mask of civility, honor and justice, views the whole world – of both friend or foe – as its own playground, and engages in the most corrupt and underhanded wheelings and dealing to […]