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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   36422 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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If you really want your bubble burst on Putin, read some of his Valdai speeches and chats. I don't agree with all of his politics or his war, but he's refreshingly direct and erudite. I can't recall seeing an American President speaking in such a way since Eisenhower.

I just randomly scrolled through this 2018 appearance and landed on this, a response to a question on mismanagement of government funds in hospice care:

Firstly, I completely agree with you that our discussions, our internal discussions should be centred on our problems, domestic problems, our people’s lives, which is actually a major part of our work. And as you said, the fact that we are discussing war – and not just war but terrorism and other similar issues – is due to the way our host Mr Lukyaunov organised the discussion, I am not the one who organises it, it is done by the host, so let us put all the blame on him.

As to the problem you raised, it is obviously very sensitive, demanding special attention and tact from the state. Ultimately – you said it yourself – the state allocated the funds. The fact that only 12 or 16 percent were used means the work was poorly organised. I assure you that it does not mean that I will say to you, “The money was allocated and you did not use it, so that’s it, good-bye.” Do not worry, this will never happen.

I know the way money is spent, and very often, funds allocated by the state to handle certain matters of absolute priority do not reach the end receiver. If they are returned to the budget, it does not mean that they will stay there for good and the necessary funds will never be allocated again. We will certainly keep doing it.

Yet we have to admit that whatever the state might do, it is impossible to completely solve any problem 100 percent. Life is more complicated and keeps throwing in more and more of new problems for us. Of course, efforts by the state are very important, as are those by society and religious organisations, by the way. It is religious organisations, and I mean our traditional faiths, that create the internal strength and internal basis for any person to feel secure in this fast-changing and fairly dangerous world.

The state will definitely pursue all the tasks in the context you have just mentioned. Do not worry. I will take your documents, of course. It does not mean we will wrap up the topic just because someone underused the funds. Have no doubt. I will see why such a small percentage was spent. It looks strange.

Maybe he's actually a bumbling fool and the English transcripts are a poor representation of what he's said, but I've never seen anyone assert that.

Russians in general are artistic. Putin, too, loves LARPing as this meticulous micromanager with a good grasp on detail, this genuinely impresses older technical folks. Again, as devarbol said of Stalin, this doesn't necessarily translate into anything like understanding of the war, what is at stake, which details matter, whom to trust, when to act. In fact he's often very much behind the times; why, it seems that Wagner mutiny caught him by surprise, even though Prigozhin was making these noises for months. Putin is performing a particular role; he has imagemakers and various Turkic speechwriters (whose successors now feed him Twitter right-winger context about teh gays, it seems) and all that staff and it's probably pretty compelling – from afar, and when you don't remember decades of vacuous big picture pointification interspersed with occasional autistic detail and coyly wagging the finger at some guilty official, as the country rusts and rots and is pillaged by his friends and people trying to do anything productive give up and escape.

When you have that context in mind it looks pretty demonic.

...

Yes. Basically you either fail to pass the bureaucratic filter, end up insolvent, or get big enough to attract attention of some oprichnik who wants a personal turf. If it were a hard-and-fast rule we'd all have starved of course but it's enough to ensure that Russia never gets back to like 2013 levels of wealth. Like in many other mundane things I concur with Galeev in his analysis here.

...

Well, the war had started in 2014 and so did Russian economic woes. I think metrics which suggest Russia had been successfully coping with that are not credible. Holistically, what we have now is… like… 2006 maybe. Only without the positive outlook.

There are plenty of Harvard and Yale (and before that Andover and Exeter) types in the State Department who can do ‘erudite statesman’ if you want them to (and they sometimes do, although usually not on CNN or the evening news). American politicians cater to the American public. As DeSantis is currently demonstrating, being smart and educated and intellectual does precisely nothing for you with the American public.

You find that convincing? Empty repetitions of "I hear your concerns, dear voters compatriots" peppered with equally vacuous applause lights. We have "direct" at home.

I don't know what convincing you're referring to, I don't know if the problem was actually solved.

I just can't recall any American politician admitting that there's a problem, getting into the details on use-it-or-lose budget rules, saying that this is an instance of a more general failure case, and then admitting the constraints of what the state can achieve.

Even admitting the existence of a problem that happened on your watch is vanishingly rare.

And this was just a random scroll.

Direct would be:

Next year, you‘ll get 12%, and you‘ll like it. Money doesn‘t grow on trees, my good man. Extra hospice money is obviously a matter of low priority to the state, and I personally couldn‘t care less. Have no doubt. Most of the time I don‘t even know where the vital bribe money goes. We will certainly keep doing it.

Life is very complicated for me right now. Society and religious organizations should get off my ass, or they will be folded into United Russia. I‘ll show them how fast-changing and fairly dangerous our world can be. So I need everyone in the traditional faiths to pray for my inner strength in these trying times.

I promise to look at the issue you brought up, when I‘m not doing PR or otherwise engaged. Do not worry, this will never happen.

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