On hold

This blog is obviously no longer active.  I might ressurrect it at some point.  If I have something interesting to blog about!

IS RUSSIA STILL A THREAT?

A Guest Editorial by Alex Michshenko

It was Pat Buchanan’s recent article that prompted this erudite response. In Why Are We Baiting Putin?, Mr. Buchanan picks up where the official Kremlin has left off in its swift response to Vice President Cheney’s remarks in Vilnius, Lithuania. “(D)o we not have enough people hating us and Bush – writes former presidential candidate – that we have to get into Putin’s face and antagonize the largest nation on earth?”

Mr. Buchanan, call me next week and I’ll see what I can do about arranging a flight to Moscow for you. Obviously, sir, your knowledge on Russia is no deeper than that of a thirteen year – old kid in any metropolitan public school in this country: Russia is a cold place off the tip of the North Pole, inhabited by polar bears and humans, who wear beaver hats and drink vodka for Gatorade. For the longest time, these wild creatures were communist. They built bombs to terrorize the local Eskimo population. Recently, they found religion and became capitalist and so it is a duty of every patriotic American to hug them a lot.

Now, balderdash aside, let us look at real facts:

In 1991 (that would be the year the USSR fell apart, Mr. Buchanan), fourteen of the mother country’s fifteen subjected republics declared independence, some even before the Moscow coup. Their constitutions, each bearing features of individuality, despite their innocent tone and structural flaws, made them independent entities, free from the ties to their formerly oppressive master. By definition, then, what they do and who they make friends with is their sovereign business. Frankly I see no place for Russia’s desperate retaliation for and anger toward her former slave – republics in the light of the co-called color-coded revolutions. The term bad loser seems rather appropriate for Russia in this regard.

Vladimir Putin is ex- KGB, and in the interest of self-preservation you might stop with that. The truth is that since Boris Yeltsin essentially appointed Putin as his successor on Christmas Eve of 1999 (nobody, even in Russia, doubts that official elections that followed in five months were staged by – among others – Gleb Pavlovsky, Putin’s famed image-maker), the country began its slow turn back to oppressive centralized government, economic planning, and political acrimony toward the West. The latter was so thickly present in Russia already in 2000, you could cut it with a dessert knife. When I visited Moscow that year, I was shocked as to how influential the Russian Neo-nazi party is among young people. You could see them in the Red Square, heads shaved, shouting racial, anti-Semitic, and anti-American slurs. You met them at local McDonald’s, on subway, even near the notorious KGB building (now Federal Security Service).
Old habits die hard, and, when endorsed by the Kremiln administration, they die even harder.

Now, unless, Mr. Buchanan, you have personally come up with an ingenious plan to track down and destroy the out-of-commission Soviet tactical weapons arsenal, you are probably assuming that Russia and the republics have long taken care of it. You are assuming wrong, which is why I will also have to put you on a plane to Krasnoyarsk-45, or Semipalatinsk, or the outskirts of Sakhalin, or any other strategic town of the once mighty Soviet Union. Numerous B-rated Hollywood movies about stolen Soviet warheads, radioactive waste, pouring into seas from Russian nuclear reactors are corny, no doubt, but unfortunately that doesn’t make their message false. At this point, Russia and the republics are making more money selling what they have left in the bunkers from the Cold War period than they are marketing their new military technology. Considering the quality of the leftovers, think for a moment who their buyers might be.

We watch them closely and we respond before there is a slightest threat to the security of the United States. Russia and her dark past should trouble the minds of our military analysts for years to come. After all, intelligence is what they do best.

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A Guest Entry by Alex Michshenko

It took me awhile to present myself to you, my dear reader. For that I had a somewhat legitimate reason, but before I begin my apologetic letter, several words from the heart must be said.

I am thrilled to be part of this project, mastered by my close friend and ideological rival, Mr. Eric Fox. Eric and I have a shared passion for history and politics. This shared passion, however, in no way defines us as like – minded allies. We may cheer for the same football team, or enjoy reading Allison Weir, but we draw a line (or, better call it barbwire fence) when it comes to discussing political issues. We dig in and we take no prisoners.

This project was born because God loves diversity and because some people enjoy intellectual debates. We have something to say and, if you stick on our blogspot long enough, you just might enjoy our wit and charm and maybe even join one of the warring camps, preferably mine.

Welcome and enjoy,

Alex Michshenko

Alito Hearings!

I’ve been watching the Alito hearings off and on, while reading commentary in NR and TNR.

I haven’t watched more, because there isnt that much substance to the hearings. It’s a shame these cannot take the form a great debate, where we actually have a chance to thrash this constitutional stuff out in the open. In a way that will help the public understand the issues involved.

World’s greatest dilibritive body? Ha.

More like, “the slightly less disfunctional side of a bicameral congress.”

its a test

first post

Lactic Acid induced thoughts

While running this evening, I thought about this new blog and tried to decide what form it would take. I’ve decided it will not be about my personal life. If you must know the latest trials and tribulations of the epic that is my life, you’re going to have to ask me. Rather, this will be my thoughts concerning the latest news (political), video games, and anything else that strikes me. I’ve thought about posting the SGA agenda each week, and decided against it. Instead I will only post bills which appropriate money that are out of the ordinary (such as a massive $3,000 wall). Posting the entire agenda each week would be rather unwieldy, as much of it is routine stuff.

The name of this place is subject to change. Oak Street is just a working title, until real inspiration hits me.

I do not respect people, who at my age, think they have the whole world figured out. People who think they know the solution to all our problems because they read a book by Sean Hannity or Al Franken. Opinions take work. Lots of reading, pondering and reflection. Therefore, at this stage, it’s only possible to have a few. It is so easy to have an opinion fed to you, subscribe to an ideology, then rest in the comfort of thinking you know the answers to all society’s ills. I think I’ve managed to develop a few opinions over the last few years, and this blog will serve the purpose of expressing them. But there are many issues where I must simply say: I don’t know yet.

That said, I have a few musings on the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. As a liberal, I must reconcile myself to the fact that we’re going to have a conservative justice. With a Republican President, Senate, and a large voting block exerting enormous pressure on them, we can hardly expect less. Whether Roberts is a good choice therefore, turns not on how conservative he is, but on questions of temperment. There is a huge difference between a conservative justice that respects stare decisis and belives in incremental change, and another who totally disregards precedent (read: Thomas). Thus far, my sense of Roberts is of a very thoughtful conservative justice who can easily see both sides of an issue. While I may not agree with all his opinions, I believe I will respect them as grounded in precedent and the text of the constitution. Perhaps I’m helped in this by being more judicially conservative than most other liberals. I’ll be reserving final judgement until after the confirmation hearings.

Besides, Ann Coulter hates the selection of John Roberts. So he can’t be all bad.