“The status of a world superpower is worth, for most Russians, going hungry and suffering privations,” a very calm professor of economics explained on Russian TV. “We only recently created the kind of economy where people have free access to goods and services, and this means that the people of Russia value the free access to goods very highly. But they value the status of the global superpower even more.”
The saddest thing is that he is not wrong. Now compare it with the sacrifices Americans are willing to make to retain their status of the global superpower.
And now you can easily draw your own conclusions.
Clarissa's Blog 
I must say that I can’t respect a “patriotic” willingness to sacrifice that doesn’t make life measurably better for the inhabitants of the country. There are a lot of patriotic idiots in the US as well – who don’t care if there is actual benefit to the US, but who just want to go shoot at brown people to feed their ego (George W Bush, for one).
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Not to defend the Russian patriots, but there are people for whom “better” isn’t always limited to stuffing one’s belly.
Simplifications of complex issues are enjoyable but don’t lead to a nuanced understanding of the world.
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“Better” doesn’t have to mean over-drinking (something the Russians do even better than Americans, if health statistics are correct), over-eating (Americans win the prize here and are #2 worldwide in type 2 diabetes), or over-anything. It could mean better public libraries, better parks, better schools, kid-friendly neighborhoods, elder and handicapped-friendly neighborhoods, etc. It could mean something as simple as the proverbial stop sign at a busy pedestrian crossing – the sort of thing that local government is meant to deliver (stop signs, sidewalks, garbage pickup, clean water, etc). What I can’t abide is seeing people who would rather boast about bombing someone else than about fixing maybe-not-so-glamorous problems at home. Yes, Obama is a disappointment. EVERY politician is a disappointment, and that is to be expected in part because WE THE PEOPLE are a disappointment too often. Maybe 25% of the eligible voters bothered to vote on Tuesday, but 100% of the eligible voters claim the right to bitch.
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” It could mean better public libraries, better parks, better schools, kid-friendly neighborhoods, elder and handicapped-friendly neighborhoods, etc. It could mean something as simple as the proverbial stop sign at a busy pedestrian crossing – the sort of thing that local government is meant to deliver (stop signs, sidewalks, garbage pickup, clean water, etc).”
– We already had all of this in the USSR. And life totally sucked.
“What I can’t abide is seeing people who would rather boast about bombing someone else than about fixing maybe-not-so-glamorous problems at home. Yes, Obama is a disappointment. EVERY politician is a disappointment, and that is to be expected in part because WE THE PEOPLE are a disappointment too often.”
– I know you this childish tone and infantile arguments are not your own. But I can’t figure out whose they are and why you inserted them here.
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“Maybe 25% of the eligible voters bothered to vote on Tuesday, but 100% of the eligible voters claim the right to bitch.”
– They probably share the wide-spread belief that fixing maybe-not-so-glamorous problems at home (mowing their private lawn, fixing their personal dinner, etc.) is more crucial than general politics.
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Obama does a good job at ordering “folks” to shoot up brown people too. Let’s not start to compare drone strike death numbers here.
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Well, I’d say that since 2001, Americans have proved willing to sacrifice everything admirable about their culture for an illusory feeling of “security,” but I’d say that the country has only declined on the international stage as a result of these sacrifices.
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Not surprisingly, given my profession,I am obsessing about the expected upheavals in health care.
I am a little confused about FSU having top-flight education – haven’t you complained in the past about the educational system there?
We The People are a disappointment mostly because we don’t stay involved in the political system on an ongoing basis. Voting is important, but it is not enough. Traditionally, the rank and file that do stay involved between elections are the conservative evangelical anti-science, anti-gay, anti-reproductive freedom, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, white supremacy types, who are kept active by the specific instructions of their pastors.Now, I shouldn’t be so harsh, because the Ferguson demonstrations and organizations arising from those demonstrations are a sign of hope that people will continue to demand change in the policing of the North Side and its suburbs.
Politicians are a disappointment because they are inevitably influenced by the need to raise huge amounts of money for campaigns.
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“I am a little confused about FSU having top-flight education – haven’t you complained in the past about the educational system there?”
– I have. But the overwhelming majority of the Soviet people believed then and still do that it was phenomenal.
“We The People are a disappointment”
– To whom? 🙂
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