The Pravda Hurts

When english lanquage Pravda, the Russian government run newspaper whose name translates as "Truth," makes more sense than 90% of the editorial pages in the U.S., then we are in trouble. Just about every line in this April 27, 2009 article burns with a mocking truth. A few excerpts.

The opening salvo: "It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people."

Then there is this exacting critique of the vast, degenerating American public educational system of the last few decades (mirroring my comments about the Ignorati Class about half way down in this article a month ago): "First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonald's burger or a BurgerKing (sic) burger than for their constitutional rights."

Eh? What's that? A Russian (!) extols knowledge of our constitutional rights as a mark of good education, while our education establishment throws millions of public dollars at "self-esteem" studies.

And then there is this passage on Religion and Churches in America, which goes a little over the top in seeing only a desire for political power in the last election cycle, but nevertheless highlights the strange scene of Christian preachers currying favor with the most irreligious Presidential ticket in my lifetime: "Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their ... top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another ... Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America."

There is more. The article pointedly names the Wall Street insiders who have engineered the biggest bail-out of the largest financial firms in the world as "Oligarchs," certainly a debatable point but not THAT debatable. It derides our pretensions at freedom and the rule of law when we allow a President to fire CEO's of private companies without even the color of a law enacted by elected representatives of Congress, and to otherwise declare to American citizens, "Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions."

To me, an interesting throw away line is when the article cites Marxism, and by implication European Socialism, as a "Western sponsored horror show" that Russia suffered under for "70 years." I have often wondered why we haven't heard more of such sentiments. Historically, Russia always seemed to have some perverse desire to be more Western, but China and the rest of Asia? Why would they ever be attracted to a romantic Western mythology of the 19th Century?

I don't know. But perhaps for the same reason that now, in the 21st Century, almost 4 generations removed, we Americans are seduced by those same quaint, parochial, old and tired ideologies of the last 100 years that have brought such misery and suffering to so many millions.

But there is more in this short Pravda article, much more, and you can find it here.

And as you read it, ask yourself this: can America ever hope for the same clarity from our own media as we see here in the formerly Marxist, currently oligarchical, Russian state run media? It doesn't seem likely.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.