August 16, 2024 - 7:00am
On 16 August 1999, the Russian parliament approved a new prime minister. This was then-President Boris Yeltsin’s fifth in just 16 months and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a confused parliamentarian mistakenly called the new premier by the name of his predecessor. There was seemingly no need to recall the name of yet another dull bureaucrat who would most likely pass quickly and unremarkably through the revolving door of Russian politics.
Fast forward 25 years and Vladimir Putin’s name is forgotten by no one. Imitating another who had once been derided as a “grey blur”, the Russian President’s rule looks set to match the length of Joseph Stalin’s. That is not the only sign of the Stalinist tendencies of this modern-day vozhd. Political opponents are murdered, while sabotage and destabilisation operations strive to bring the countries on Russia’s periphery into its orbit. Tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian lives have been claimed, and to speak the truth of Moscow’s belligerence paradoxically carries a Soviet-style prison term for spreading “misinformation”.
There is no sign that any of this will abate soon. The domestic opposition is divided, while the war is lucrative for many ordinary Russians for whom peacetime offered only poverty. Besides, Putinism will outlive the President himself. While domestic opponents and even foreign governments grudgingly accept that change can come only after his death or retirement, the system of cronyism and corruption that Putin has sustained and encouraged is so embedded that it will be difficult to break even then.
Looking ahead, Putin’s ideal scenario of a Donald Trump administration cutting aid to Ukraine appears less likely following Kamala Harris’s emergence as the Democratic presidential candidate. Adding to Volodya’s growing list of headaches is Russia suffering its first foreign invasion since the Second World War, thanks to Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk. Nevertheless, with Ukraine still losing territory in the Donetsk region, the chances are that Putin will eventually bludgeon Kyiv into a shabby compromise, potentially keeping the Donbas and Crimea for himself in return for the rest of Ukraine being permitted to join the EU and Nato or remain neutral, protected by security guarantees. That will be sold as a victory to a Russian public hungry for any success.
With the constitution permitting him to rule until 2036 and open to further manipulation, Putin will most likely remain in office until his own death. At that juncture, a formal process will lead to elections. However, given the pool of likely candidates, it is the system that will win: 77% of 2019’s government were siloviki, or from the security forces. Alternatively, should he decide that dictatorial rule is a young man’s game and plump for a comfortable retirement, he would hand over to a carefully groomed successor selected for their commitment to keeping both their predecessor and his legacy alive.
One hopes for better, of course. Yet Putin always was the death of hope. More specifically, he was the death of a hope that Russia could become, in the words of a man who perished this year in the sub-zero temperatures of an Arctic penal colony, a “happy”, “free” and “normal” country.
The Russian President once remarked that the KGB taught him little that he had not already learnt scrapping on the streets of Leningrad. “There is no retreat,” he said. “It is necessary to carry it through to the end. You didn’t get involved unless you were prepared to see it through.” His grip on power still tight, there is every indication that Putin will also see ruling Russia through to the very end.
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SubscribeWhat I struggle to understand is what pressure these radical trans-activists can realistically bring to a scientific publisher?
Is there money (or loss of income) floating around somewhere hidden?
Is it pressure from a few employees?
I really don’t get it.
I’m with you on this Andrew. I can’t see how a tiny minority of, admittedly very shouty, people can exert this amount of pressure over an issue that most people (the ones I speak to) don’t take particularly seriously.
The investigative reporter Jennifer Bilek exposes some of the powerful forces, big money and creepy perversions of the super-rich behind the trans-activist movement. This recent YouTube video is a good example:
She deserves a wider audience.
This is a very important point! How are are these trans activists so effective? Do they visit the publisher in person or in their home. How do they do it!
There is a global movement to flatten the concept of ‘gender’ so that men and women become entirely interchangeable. When traditional masculine and feminine identities are finally destroyed they can be replaced by a far more compliant identity – one that is disembodied from religion, history, culture, and sex – a kind of neutered consumer-worker drone if you will.
An interesting insight, which I’ve heard before but not so neatly put. In America, most are already consumer worker drones. Why not neutered, as well? It’s clear that our many “woke” corporations see dollar signs in marketing to consumers captured by gender ideology.
An interesting insight, which I’ve heard before but not so neatly put. In America, most are already consumer worker drones. Why not neutered, as well? It’s clear that our many “woke” corporations see dollar signs in marketing to consumers captured by gender ideology.
Cowardice is in the mix there somewhere.
It’s because publishing these days, including scientific publishing, is a hotbed of wokeness. Look at what recently happened to Prof Nigel Biggar and his attempt to have a nuanced book on Colonialism and the British Empire published. The publisher — Bloomsbury, I think — having commissioned and received the manuscript, suddenly announced it wouldn’t be published due to ‘public concerns’. He managed to get released from the contract and has managed to successfully publish elsewhere.
Activists say jump, and the publications merely reply ‘how high?’
While most people are apathetic on these things, Activists can rally a small but highly motivated group to support “victims” against oppressors, by attracting those who sympathize with the supposed injustices, even if those sympathies were coerced based on blatant lies. The Activists and their mob then attack not only the individuals and companies deemed oppressors, but groups, friends, family, acquaintances, partners, and businesses that work or associate with the supposed oppressors. The pressure relies primarily on boycotts and blackmail, by including threats of coordinated public campaigns of negative publicity.
The defamed real victim may try to weather the storm, and can possibly sue for the personal and professional damages caused by the spreading of the false information, but sue who? Everyone posting or sharing the rumor? Can a specific leader even be located and then proven as the catalyst? Probably not. Certainly not with the help of Social Media platforms. And what about those platforms carrying the garage? We all know they have immunity – and may very well join in the attack by promoting the negative propaganda and suspending and canceling those that defend you. Heck, they can even eliminate your self defense and rebuttal ability by shadow banning or canceling you: all the while letting the mob continue their beat down, unimpeded.
There’s simply no effective and efficient rapid response defense mechanism for this kind of coordinated attack, often of lies. And there are no deep pockets to punish or pay retribution. Therefore, it’s usually a simple risk assessment that concludes something like, “Ok, then…this is NOT the item we are willing to fight to the death about, so we’ll retract the article”.
Then comes the final insidious step. Before capitulating to the mob the targeted individual or company defends themselves by taking precautions to insure their actions are cloaked in some sort of legitimacy. So, basically, they end up doing the extremely dirty and disgusting work of laundering their decision through justifications that end up benefiting the mob that unjustly attacked them in the first place.
Why? Because the trans activists are now inside the institution (including in positions at the top of the editorial chain of command), and the institution is no longer committed to editorial integrity and objective standards, but rather to the particular result.
I’m with you on this Andrew. I can’t see how a tiny minority of, admittedly very shouty, people can exert this amount of pressure over an issue that most people (the ones I speak to) don’t take particularly seriously.
The investigative reporter Jennifer Bilek exposes some of the powerful forces, big money and creepy perversions of the super-rich behind the trans-activist movement. This recent YouTube video is a good example:
She deserves a wider audience.
This is a very important point! How are are these trans activists so effective? Do they visit the publisher in person or in their home. How do they do it!
There is a global movement to flatten the concept of ‘gender’ so that men and women become entirely interchangeable. When traditional masculine and feminine identities are finally destroyed they can be replaced by a far more compliant identity – one that is disembodied from religion, history, culture, and sex – a kind of neutered consumer-worker drone if you will.
Cowardice is in the mix there somewhere.
It’s because publishing these days, including scientific publishing, is a hotbed of wokeness. Look at what recently happened to Prof Nigel Biggar and his attempt to have a nuanced book on Colonialism and the British Empire published. The publisher — Bloomsbury, I think — having commissioned and received the manuscript, suddenly announced it wouldn’t be published due to ‘public concerns’. He managed to get released from the contract and has managed to successfully publish elsewhere.
Activists say jump, and the publications merely reply ‘how high?’
While most people are apathetic on these things, Activists can rally a small but highly motivated group to support “victims” against oppressors, by attracting those who sympathize with the supposed injustices, even if those sympathies were coerced based on blatant lies. The Activists and their mob then attack not only the individuals and companies deemed oppressors, but groups, friends, family, acquaintances, partners, and businesses that work or associate with the supposed oppressors. The pressure relies primarily on boycotts and blackmail, by including threats of coordinated public campaigns of negative publicity.
The defamed real victim may try to weather the storm, and can possibly sue for the personal and professional damages caused by the spreading of the false information, but sue who? Everyone posting or sharing the rumor? Can a specific leader even be located and then proven as the catalyst? Probably not. Certainly not with the help of Social Media platforms. And what about those platforms carrying the garage? We all know they have immunity – and may very well join in the attack by promoting the negative propaganda and suspending and canceling those that defend you. Heck, they can even eliminate your self defense and rebuttal ability by shadow banning or canceling you: all the while letting the mob continue their beat down, unimpeded.
There’s simply no effective and efficient rapid response defense mechanism for this kind of coordinated attack, often of lies. And there are no deep pockets to punish or pay retribution. Therefore, it’s usually a simple risk assessment that concludes something like, “Ok, then…this is NOT the item we are willing to fight to the death about, so we’ll retract the article”.
Then comes the final insidious step. Before capitulating to the mob the targeted individual or company defends themselves by taking precautions to insure their actions are cloaked in some sort of legitimacy. So, basically, they end up doing the extremely dirty and disgusting work of laundering their decision through justifications that end up benefiting the mob that unjustly attacked them in the first place.
Why? Because the trans activists are now inside the institution (including in positions at the top of the editorial chain of command), and the institution is no longer committed to editorial integrity and objective standards, but rather to the particular result.
What I struggle to understand is what pressure these radical trans-activists can realistically bring to a scientific publisher?
Is there money (or loss of income) floating around somewhere hidden?
Is it pressure from a few employees?
I really don’t get it.
Can’t they just go somewhere else?
.
.
Can’t they just go somewhere else?
Transes’ star is hitched unalternatively to the Progressive movement. The only human distinction is class. Race and sex are caused by class. Every difference manifested in human condition is caused by class. The remedy is to eliminate class.
Words like alternative, only, other don’t exist because they might result in difference or lead to not class.
Race and sex are caused by class?
Your are even more deranged than Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
Even Pol Pot sounds saner than you.
What??!?
Race and sex are caused by class?
Your are even more deranged than Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
Even Pol Pot sounds saner than you.
What??!?
Transes’ star is hitched unalternatively to the Progressive movement. The only human distinction is class. Race and sex are caused by class. Every difference manifested in human condition is caused by class. The remedy is to eliminate class.
Words like alternative, only, other don’t exist because they might result in difference or lead to not class.