In a certain splenetic fit of wrongheadedness, a certain person writes on a related list:
>>Who can argue against a "return to socialism"? But what does that have to do with the Bonapartist figure who is running Russia today and whose hands are drenched with the blood of the Chechen "bandits". And whose oil tycoons are sitting down at the table with Conoco to divide up the Iraqi pie. And how proper and fitting that you cite R.B. Ware as some kind of big-time expert on what the Dagestanis want. This is the same guy who shows up regularly in Peter Lavelle's columns and every other media whore for Putin's Kremlin. Lavelle, Chris Doss and all these other characters really turn my stomach. They went over to Russia as carpet-baggers and have all launched careers as stenographers for the people in power. But at least Lavelle and Doss, unlike you, are not confused about what they seek, namely a powerful capitalist Russian state. Honestly, if I have to deal with Russian nationalism, I'll prefer it without leftish pretensions.<< http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/2004-December/032546.html Since certain people here are on both lists, a shall state for the record that: 1. I did not go to Russia as a "carpetbagger." I taught English and harvested crops on a commune in rural Russia. 2. Peter Lavelle lives in a one-room apartment near the train station that he shares with his wife, two doga and a cat. I know because I am there frequently. He has hardly made a "career." 3. R. B. Ware is the most-respected writer on the North Caucausus writing in the English language, as anyone with a passing acquaintance in the region is well aware. He is a Hegel scholar and is not in Russia, although he did live in Dagestan duriing the height of the Chechen slavetrade/hostage industry. His excellent work on Dagestani public opinion with Dagestani sociologist Enver Kisriev, for anyone interested, can be found here: http://www.siue.edu/~rware/Political_Islam_in_Dagestan.pdf 4. The Kremlin has not and is not tearing up the last vestiges of the social welfare state. If anyone wants, I can post exactly what the benefits are -- they have been printed widely in the media. 5. I suggest not publically maligning people people on teh Internet. It makes you look like a fool. ===== Nu, zayats, pogodi! __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Jazz up your holiday email with celebrity designs. Learn more. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com
