What Remains Rotten In Russia

MS: Thanks for your insights. I hope this serves as a reminder that in the U.S. you can stand up and tell the truth to the political leadership (of both parties, hint, hint) without fear of mortal reprisal. Sure you might lose access from time to time, but, is it really worth having your leg groped without complaining, as others have?

OK, gang. Let's try it out today: no feeding Thursday. We can go crazy on the weekend.

Almost identical impression I would have if I were to limit my impression of the US to interaction with US border guards at the airports.

Michael, you should try to get out of press van next time. If you plan writing about your feelings after reading other reports work you should join some provincial book club with the rest of desperate housewives

Aye, Michael me lad, just be ignorin' th' killin', brutality an' intimidation - look a' th' perfect onion dome o'er there in th' square! Oohhh - how pretty Russia be!

Very interesting post. I wonder about Russians who go into journalism at this point. Are they brave? Bought by the politicians? Crazy?

MS, great post.

Michael -- this is the kind of blogging at which you really excel. Your pieces on other reporters, recommendations of well-written magazine articles and other writing about journalism are well thought-out and written. Perhaps your politics beat should be a stepping stone to something in this realm?

Very interesting post. If anything, I'd like to read more.

(Did you buy the Russian Spam as an ironic souvenir? Or was the food in the hotel that bad?)

Great post Michael. Yes, you do excel at giving atmospherics. You have the gift of discernment - the recognition of bad spirits. Knowing that may get you out of a tight spot some day - i.e, trust your gut please.

And thanks for giving us such a complex view of Russia in so few words.

"Then there was also the central lie of the state--the mob-like corruption that is never dealt with, the spoon-fed national press, and the (mostly) unstated threats to journalists or activists who demand a different fidelity to the truth."

That does sound really rotten.

Though don't tell him, as he has not yet received it.

Lol!

As others said, great post.

You make Russia sound like the GOP convention. Do you speak Russian?

Great post MS, keep the presidental travel logs coming. The spam gift sounds awesome.

I agree with avs123's points.

Did you really complain that didn't show enough adulation to the motorcades? Moscow is bigger than any American city. Do you really think people in Washington and New York stop and gawk whenever a limo rolls by?

And what do phrases like "loyalist to the Russian state" mean? I kind of assume that's true to most most people to the country they live in.

That's not to say that there aren't serious issues in Russia, but you should acknowledge the limited view you get when you're there for such a short time and getting handled by minders (do you think we don't have people spitting out pro-Administration spin when we're hosting foreign journalists?).

Michael, friendships take time. Don't give up on them. Next time you're there, give some lonely pretty Russian woman a hug. But if she says, "Spasiba, but if you want more that will cost 500 rubles" then politely run away. Maybe you need more drinking games / toasts with them. Za vas!

Excellent post, Scherer. Other commenters are right, you really excel at this kind of writing. When you do a post like this, you really add value and class to this blog.

I'm struck by the similarities, though, between the public corruption that you describe in Russia, and the corruption and war crimes of the Bush Administration. Russia got that way because they kept getting away with it and none of them have ever been held accountable for their crimes. Admittedly, the bushies didn't execute journalists (that we are aware of), though that's because they found other ways to make them compliant and to silence them, even now.

The stench of corruption is here and now as well. But here in America, the establishment media is PART and PARCEL of the corruption. I guess it's easier to see and to write about when it's another country, not so easy when it is here at home.

Take that interview today between Chuck Todd and Glenn Greenwald. Mr. Todd and his colleagues are still carrying water for the Bush Administration, protecting them as best he can from being held accountable for war crimes and the intentional death of prisoners.

Admittedly, the bushies didn't execute journalists...

Let's not be too hasty.

What James said, and I'd add this:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/11/journalists/

As well as what I said in response to Joe's post on Newsweek journo, Maziar Bahari: "I agree Joe, but can we at least acknowledge that Iran is not the only country that does this? In other words, you can condemn the Iranians for such practices (and you should), but as with our gov't, I'm forced to call b-s/hypocrisy unless you're also willing to admit America's own shameful and egregious violations."

The fact that we're not killing journalists offers me little solace. The selective outrage is stunning. About Saberi, these brave Russians, or the two women held by N. Korea, it's all good--Iran, Russia, NK, our agreed-upon enemies. Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent depicts just this lack of consistency in US media coverage. His principal example concerns the atrocities by the Khmer Rouge (by our communist enemy) vs. those by our client state, Indonesia, against the E. Timorese. It's a damning juxtaposition that defines our media coverage of the world today and nowhere more vividly than where America's own practices are concerned.

And as someone who's spent years in the Far East (most of my mates in Hokkaido, a brief ferry ride away from Sakhalin, were working class Russian immigrants), your facile dismissal of Russian society is nothing short of insulting. Your condescending 1st world perspective is a variation of orientalism. "A week after visiting Russia, I am still haunted by the sort of subdermal creepiness of the place." "The place"!? The gov't, its practices, some of the particular folks you encountered, perhaps, but the place!? So, on your little presidential bubble tour you got up close and personal with a significant enough cross section of Russian society to come to such a sweepingly generalized portrait of 140 million people?

As for "the seediness of power (prostitutes in the hotel bar, the extravagant wealth, the averted gazes)," Vegas, anyone? Eliot Spitzer? South Florida and the feudal gated communities I used to live near, where any black person on the barrier islands was assumed to be a Haitian illegal and the Q-tipped oldies would call the police.

Not sure if I'd call your clan an "Orwellian brainwash guard," but what our "free press" does, by and large, amts. to much the same crap.

This is extremely cliched writing about Russia, overblown and hypocritical. You can parallel virtually everything in this piece in modern America, and presenting Russia as somehow a contrast is ludicrously dishonest. As for mob-like corruption and rigged elections: look at our lobbyists and remember 2000 and the Florida rentamob of Young Republicans. But I forgot, we aren't supposed to mention Audra Shay, are we Michael?

Russian President Medvedev Should Come Up With Smart Ideas Similar To Those Of Ex-Soviet Dictator Mikhail Gorbachev.

By: Jordan C. Fan, Prophet of Environment.

Instead of "What Remains Rotten In Russia" we should say "Who...". The following are some extremely intelligent ideas dreamed up by Ex-Soviet Dictator Mikhail Gorbachev which should also be implemented by Medvedev:

(1) Make sure his name sake Michael Jackson could receive address in Russia so that Mikhail can regain his power and live in that address.

(2) Tatooed his own forehead with the map of the Philippines Islands thinking that could make that nation unite with the Soviet Union.

(3) Put Boris Yeltsin on top of his military tanks thinking that could make (Bor)is Yelt(sin) confessed to his (sin)s and a(bor)t his Revolution.

(4) Invited Osama bin Laden to his Opium smoking party in Afghanistan because he thought whoever has a name starting with an "O" could increase his opium production there.

(5) Invited Barack Obama to swim with him at his Black Sea resort so that no one could see or rescue Obama when he was drowning.

(6) Didn't believe in the possible success of Reaganomic because Gorbachev thought Reagan was just acting.

(7) "Tear down that (Berlin) Wall!" so that Russian tanks could roll into West Berlin.

(8) Gorbachev thought China were only cups and dishes for drinking and eating. He was perfectly comfortable when China was rising and even enjoyed it thinking it was an act in the "Mary Poppins" movie.

(9) Supported Soviet boycott of the Los Angeles Olympic anticipating earthquakes would destroy California. It would certainly save him money by not using nuclear missiles.

(10) Replace Russian Black Market with his own "Free Market" to put African-American spy network in the Soviet Union out of business. Or is it really a "Flea Market"?

(11) Endorsed the SALT Treaty thinking it was just a requisition for condiments. As a result all his nuclear missiles were destroyed.

(12) He released nuclear radiation from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to kill off pests roaming in the surrounding cities. Too high a dose of radiation have caused increase mutations to those pests. Their bodies have increased 1000 times in size. As a result, local residents were all being devoured by giant cock roaches and Mikhail Mouse.

Good lord, do not come more in Russia, but we are sick of you. Good luck.

And, what, the American, at you in the USA with corruption all is normal? Exposure of pyramid Merdok it not всчет? Exaggerated reports of the large companies financial and not only, it is such here "qualification" checking, or, what it is more probable - arrangement? Whether you, трупоеды, pour blood and sow death in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Авганистане? Whether your secret prisons содрагали your world of "philantrophy"? Whether your protege Khashim Tadich became from butchers the president? Whether it removed бабло from trade in Serbs on bodies? Can also you there were lured - тошнит that in fact with something? Whether Instead of in the USA, in New Арлеане, your compatriots (citizens of the USA) Negros wetted white, thrown by everything, распаясавшие the animal essence? Can, at you prostitutes are not present? In drugs do not trade? At schools children do not kill each other? Purulent трупоед, to yours обсосному to the leader have rendered exactly so much attention, how many it has deserved that. Bring down in the hole and there блюйте наздоровие. Do not offend our ground, your mean выделениями

Thanx for the article. We have translated it into Russian and laughed a lot

To the last 3 commenters: Though sadly Michael Scherer reflects the general quality of our so-called press, please keep in mind that not all Americans look at the world through so narrow and ignorant a prism.

Next TIME Mr Shirer will write even better even without leaving the plane. Why bother?

"journos" like this poor sod have no clue of how to think or to write. I frankly don't understand why trash like this is published at all.

Btw, a question to the US audience: why a journalist in Russia gets killed each time when the Russian president (Putin as it were or Medvedev now) has to go to some important meeting (the L'Aquila Summit and Germany visit this time)? Isn't this coincidence strange? And why the US (and British) press seems not to notice this coincidence? Are they thick? or just trained professional liers?