Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Paul Robinson — A Bum Rap

Things are so bad in Russia that people are reduced to stealing toilet paper, writes Paul Goble in an absorbing article in The Interpreter. Referring to the case of a 21-year old man who was arrested in Petrozavodsk after stealing a roll of toilet paper from the city’s Lotos Plaza shopping centre. Goble says that the incident indicates how ‘Russia’s poor are driven to despair by deteriorating economic conditions [and are] seeking to take care of themselves and their families by turning to crime.’ He cites Sergei Smirnov of the Higher School of Economics as suggesting that the situation is not yet so terrible as to cause social unrest, as many Russians still have money in reserve, but counters that ‘at a time when some Russians are forced to steal toilet paper, that may not be as much a reserve as Smirnov suggests.’
The Interpreter regularly plumbs the depths of Russophobia, and with this article hits rock bottom.…
Like I said, Paul A. Goble has the earmarks of a shill. Here is Paul Robinson demonstrating the ways.

The Higher School of Economics in Russia is a neoliberal institutions angling to bring back the cowboy capitalism of the Yeltsin years, and The Interpreter is financed and run by the Khordokovsky family. Mikhail Khordokovsky, the disgraced oligarch now living in the US, is a top choice of the US deep state to replace Putin.

Irrussianality
Paul Robinson, professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, and the author of numerous books on Russia and Soviet history, including 'Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich: Supreme Commander of the Russian Army'

1 comment:

Matt Franko said...

This is the same as corrupt Venezuela where they cant wipe their asses unless oil is at the high monopoly rent extracting price of $100/bbl and they have enough "money" to buy the Koch brothers Brawny brand toilet paper..

So if we take the hit in our real terms via monopoly oil prices then these second rate nations can wipe their asses....