Russophobia, Common Lies-Nonsense on Russia

To be fair there aren't that many people on mp.net with those sort of views; most people are reasonable and open to debate - many are friendly to Russia because in their view - they are at war with Islamic terrorism and Russia is an ally.

To be fair they are not all like that, but they just want Russia as an ally against Islamic Terrorism just like they wanted Stalins Soviet Union as an ally against Germany... when the smoke clears the differences come in to focus and it is the same old sht again.

Even in gaming communitty forum there are russophobes  and i were happen to be their nightmare.

Stealthflanker wrote:Even in gaming communitty forum there are russophobes  and i were happen to be their nightmare.

With the constant anti-soviet/anti-russian propaganda from the west through out an entire century it is no wonder that people are just absolutley stupid, knowing absolutely nothing about russian country or people and just believe each lie they hear, like "gays" are jailed when they are gay, that gulags are some sort of death camps with almost zero survivability rate, that putin is a dictator even that almost 80% of the country vote for him over and over again and that the quality of life not only in soviet union but also in russia is so bad... they deny everytime when you face them with actual facts that the life standards especially during Soviet times were higher than anywhere in the west, free and the best education system which till this day russia is on nr. 1 place with 52% of population with higher academic degree, the biggest reading country, the best and free health care system, no homeless or jobless people, no religious or racial bullshit prosecution like they had and in the US with black people.

For average indoctrinated americans the world is devided in evil communists who never smile and will do everything they can to kill you, german nazis with mobile gas chambers or terrorists, the entire arabic culture just one big terrorist organisation... that is literally how they educate them to be stupid that makes it easier to spread fear and hatred.

Best and free healthcare system
No homeless or jobless people

Thanks for the laugh  
In the Soviet Union maybe; not now that's for sure

Anyway, a lot of the other stuff you say is true though

flamming_python wrote:Best and free healthcare system
No homeless or jobless people

Thanks for the laugh  
In the Soviet Union maybe; not now that's for sure

Anyway, a lot of the other stuff you say is true though

i was speaking about soviet union but some are true till this day, like the level of education on population scale 52% with higher academic degree and the biggest readers are russians.

When it comes to education- Russia will be facing challenge in the future. Stagnation will have consequences. But Medvedev already mentioned that education will be reformed.
What's good about education in Russia is Soviet legacy. You have to give credit to Soviet educational system, especially precise sciences. I compared what we used do in our school and what kids learn in UK.. We did algebraic calculations, functions, geometry, probabilities, combinatorics, statistics, trigonometrics everyday as homework. What brits do is only scratching the surface. But then again, I don't use math I've learned like 90 percent of my time. Same with chemistry and physics.
Or maybe I'm wrong. We used to make explosives out of "svinovcii surik"(red lead oxide powder which was used to paint zhiguli and moskvitch cars). Not to mention smoke bombs. It's enough to go to any basement in blockhouse built in 80ies or before and... Sulfur is right there in between pipe conections You just have to use screwdriver to scrap it out. People in west will never understand what childhood we had in Soviet union. It was a school on other level and I'm proud be born on eastern side of the curtain, I'm no soviet nostalgic, but late 80 were amazing time.

At least I personally have all the rights to be anti-russian.
But somehow I can't find any hatred towards Russia. I might dislike Russian politics, but then I'm not the fan of my own politics too. I might be critical on one thing or another, but at least I have a decent understanding what is Russia as I'm in it's cultural and informational sphere.
Hell I don't even hate USA. I'm indifferent to them. But their politics are not the people I respect. They are getting dumber and dumber and American presidents are starting to look like Boris Nikolayevich. America might not fall like "prophecies" say, but their government likes to test their own people patience.

By the way, talking about Russian experts. Funny thing happened to my wife. She was speaking with British lady at her new workplace. My wife still has noticeable accent and British lady got curious. She tried to guess nationality of my wife and when things started getting south literally my wife said that she is Russian(technically she is not, belorusian identidy is weaker than a floss) Oh... But Your nametag has name Victoria on it. It can't be real name, she said. It's a British name. My wife said that it can and said it's Latin name. "But I thought that Russian names sound like Babushka or Kasha" ...
Not to mention more common folks and their knowledge about eastern Europe. That's what You get when Daily mail and other tabloids are pumping misinformation. I'm certainly sure most Russians could tell political system of UK and other important relevant countries while people in the West only know Putin, Stalin and Lenin and nothing about Russia at all.

You raise a few good points but I also think it goes a little both ways... I admit I know very little about the US and the people of the united states... I don't blame them for the choices and decisions of their governments any more than i want to be blamed for the actions of my government.

Most of what I know about the US comes from TV and movies, but I am pretty sure the TV image of 20 and 30 somethings living in New York in huge apartments like Friends is any truer now than it was in the early 1980s on Kate and Ally for divorced women to live in basement apartments.

There are no food stamps on TV, they never have to miss a meal to pay rent, yet millions of people live in NY and they can't all be eeking out an existence.

Non western people find it easy to find out about the west because the west actively promotes itself on TV and in movies... western people have to actively go out and find their own source of information about the rest of the world because the western media are on transmit... not receive.

Yep and what's worse, most of the information that Westerners get around the rest of the world; I mean indirectly through TV (travelling is obviously better); is reguarly filtered through the same ideological crap.

One can see it in people's perceptions of Russia. It's bombarded with more propaganda than any other country; when I lived in Britain there were no positive articles, news reports, documentaries or anything else about it at all. It was all negative, it was all exaggerated and often laughable. At least it would be laughable if it didn't fill me with so much resentment and spite against my host country or rather the hypocritical elite running it.
To an extent other Eastern European countries are viewed the same. Backward, poor, full of filthy people speaking a guttural language; and of course mafia and whores (mafia is more in relation to Russia though). They think that everyone there has just climbed down from the trees (indeed this is what a Russian politician noticed and commented about when he met some British delegation that came to Moscow; they were honestly shocked to see that it was a modern city or something along those lines).

When it comes to China in Britain; there is the usual boilerplate about lack of democracy and so on (albeit less than for Russia, funny how that works); but a great deal of coverage ends up being positive. The economic progress of the country is frequently focused on, as are aspects of Chinese culture and history; it's regarded as a very ancient civilisation that has brought much to the world. As it should be.

When the Beslan School siege happened - I followed it on Sky News (not that I didn't know any better; but funnily enough there aren't any alternative information sources without the glut of bias in the free and democratic West anyway). The anchor got a phone-in interview with an ex-SAS member while footage was playing in the background; in order to comment on the situation. For 10 minutes all she was doing was attempting to find flaws with Russian military tactics there; she kept asking them if they bothered establishing a cordon around the school, if its far back enough; for 10 minutes the same question about the perimiter security over and over and over again; even when the expert had multiple times already explained that from what he had seen it looks like the Russians know what they're doing.
Pathetic.
I've seen this sort of thing way too many times over too many years; it's made me outright cynical towards the West; I view it in absolutely no good terms whatsoever; it's just an expansive, war-mongering, intolerant empire to me which has established a level of indoctrination and subservience over its people like few others in history.

I try to be understanding, and balanced, and tolerant in my posts on this forum and others; but beneath it all there is that bias, that cynicism, that contempt towards what Europe and America claim to be and the values that they purport to stand for. I don't believe a damn word of it, although I admit that as they've probably repeated it all to themselves and to others so many times, that they probably believe their own bullshit by now.

@Werewolf, flamming_python:
The claim that USSR had zero unemployment and the best education system is extremely shaky. Of course officially everyone was employed somewhere but that was the result of structural overemployment, not of some miraculous properties of centrally planned economy. State controlled enterprises hired too many people, there were factories in which only 1/3 people actually had something to do, the rest did nothing and got their wages.

Regarding Soviet education - USSR had one of the best scientific education in the world, especially in the area of theoretical mathematics, physics, engineering etc. But it was USA that built more and better cars, roads, trains, aircraft, electronics, and later (beginning from early 80s) better tanks. 50% of all Nobel Prize winners were either Americans or Europeans working in USA.

As Sa'iqa wrote: State controlled enterprises hired too many people, there were factories in which only 1/3 people actually had something to do, the rest did nothing and got their wages.

Regarding Soviet education - USSR had one of the best scientific education in the world, especially in the area of theoretical mathematics, physics, engineering etc. But it was USA that built more and better cars, roads, trains, aircraft, electronics, and later (beginning from early 80s) better tanks. 50% of all Nobel Prize winners were either Americans or Europeans working in USA.  

1/3 of the people only doing something was not the norm. Some factories in certain areas were in fact under-employed. It was common to have a few extra un-needed people at the workplace, but let us not exaggerate. The norm was probably less than 10% of un-needed people, that would bring the unemployment rate in the country to 0%.
 

50% of all Nobel Prize winners were either Americans or Europeans working in USA. 

The Soviets would have had many more Nobel prize winners in sciences if more of their scientists defected to the USA  
Honestly, the laughable Nobel Prize system is so politicized. It has no credibility and I do not respect it.

That is an exaggeration. 1/3 of the people only doing something was not the norm. Some factories in certain areas were in fact under-employed. It was common to have a few extra un-needed people at the workplace, but let us not exagerate.

That example was from my country, Poland and such examples were common. There were sayng circulating about it.

he Soviets would have had many more Nobel prize winners if more of their scientists defected to the USA.
Honestly, the laughable Nobel Prize system is so politicized. It has no credibility and I do not respect it.

Nobel Prizes in peace or economy do tend to be politicized... but in chemistry or physics? Or physiology of medicine?

even the best scientist won't do much if they don't have technology. Scientists nned better and beter equipment, more advanced accelerators, microscopes etc. The Soviet Union was unable to keep the pace of technological growth comparable to USA - because of its centrally planned economy.

I neglected to mention that soviet science had its dark side too - for some time genetics, evolution and big bang theory were banned due to being incompatible with the principles of dialectic materialism - instead, other pseudo-scientific theories were taught.

Europe did have great values. Russia is part of European heritage too. But what is left of Europe is pitiful creature where all the countries are bunched together to form faceless union with no national identity. Not to mention absurd political correctness and enforced ideology. They are propagating love for EU and its conformist values. Smoothest occupation ever.
USA already took over in all aspects - from physics to philosophy. Culture wise NYC leaves European cities behind.

As Sa'iqa wrote:@Werewolf, flamming_python:
The claim that USSR had zero unemployment and the best education system is extremely shaky. Of course officially everyone was employed somewhere but that was the result of structural overemployment, not of some miraculous properties of centrally planned economy. State controlled enterprises hired too many people, there were factories in which only 1/3 people actually had something to do, the rest did nothing and got their wages.

Regarding Soviet education - USSR had one of the best scientific education in the world, especially in the area of theoretical mathematics, physics, engineering etc. But it was USA that built more and better cars, roads, trains, aircraft, electronics, and later (beginning from early 80s) better tanks. 50% of all Nobel Prize winners were either Americans or Europeans working in USA.  

Education has absolutley nothing to do with who can built a car...if people are smart enough to invent satellites, to create the biggest and most powerful lifting planes,helicopters or ecranoplanes than a dumb car is no problem, the Soviet Union did not give much about civil market that is all, so your argument is invalid.

And i aggree completley with Achmedfire, the Nobel Prize is a big joke and a political one, how many terrorists and warmongers recieved the Peace Nobel Prize, how many times Chinese "communists" and Soviet "communists" were denied to get a prize for their hard work.

Fact remains, Soviet Union had the highest education system in the world, period.

So what about medicine, physics, chemistry ? Nobels prize is crap when it comes tu literature, politics and other crap, but when it comes to before mentioned sciences it is spot on. Russian scientists are not inferior to western ones by any means, not trying to be an arse. Majority of Russian universities and science villages are not on same level as they were before.

Regular wrote:So what about medicine, physics, chemistry ? Nobels prize is crap when it comes tu literature, politics and other crap, but when it comes to before mentioned sciences it is spot on. Russian scientists are not inferior to western ones by any means, not trying to be an arse. Majority of Russian universities and science villages are not on same level as they were before.

Nobel Prize is not the Olympics, Nobel Prize is just a big joke of committe which is controlled by the WEST and has denied many brilliant genius works from China and Soviet/Russian scientists.

And the very first Nobel prize to a chinese was of course a guy who critizes China of course since chinese never did anything anywhere in any scientific field.

Nobel Prize or Peace Nobel Prize it has no value whatsoever. As long it is a political tool is worthless.

I've no respect for such horseshit that are controlled by people who have only political interests not real actual knowledge nor interests of scientific development.
The Nobel prize committe are a bunch of corrupt unmoral twats that getting paid to give or deny the Nobel prize, there is nothing Nobel about it.

It is obvious contrived when Obama received it. Total joke.

There is far too much propaganda about anything with Russia. And of recent, it has to do with former soviet countries as well, riding on the whole "historic" bandwagon. Yet no one points out US' history issues like General Pinochet and Pol Pot, or the likes. When someone does, the response is "that was then, this is now". Double standards.

Werewolf wrote:

Regular wrote:So what about medicine, physics, chemistry ? Nobels prize is crap when it comes tu literature, politics and other crap, but when it comes to before mentioned sciences it is spot on. Russian scientists are not inferior to western ones by any means, not trying to be an arse. Majority of Russian universities and science villages are not on same level as they were before.

Nobel Prize is not the Olympics, Nobel Prize is just a big joke of committe which is controlled by the WEST and has denied many brilliant genius works from China and Soviet/Russian scientists.

And the very first Nobel prize to a chinese was of course a guy who critizes China of course since chinese never did anything anywhere in any scientific field.

Nobel Prize or Peace Nobel Prize it has no value whatsoever. As long it is a political tool is worthless.

I've no respect for such horseshit that are controlled by people who have only political interests not real actual knowledge nor interests of scientific development.
The Nobel prize committe are a bunch of corrupt unmoral twats that getting paid to give or deny the Nobel prize, there is nothing Nobel about it.

What works were denied by Russian and Chinese scientists may I ask?

As Sa'iqa wrote:

Nobel Prizes in peace or economy do tend to be politicized... but in chemistry or physics? Or physiology of medicine?

even the best scientist won't do much if they don't have technology. Scientists nned better and beter equipment, more advanced accelerators, microscopes etc. The Soviet Union was unable to keep the pace of technological growth comparable to USA - because of its centrally planned economy.

I neglected to mention that soviet science had its dark side too - for some time genetics, evolution and big bang theory were banned due to being incompatible with the principles of dialectic materialism - instead, other pseudo-scientific theories were taught.

Everything associated with Nobel Prize is politicized, including physics, chemistry and medicine.
The Soviets put the first satellite in orbit, the first man in space, the first to do laser eye surgery, the first mass users of titanium in various fields, they put new elements on the (chemistry) periodic table etc. etc.
Their scientists were not even nominated for the various Nobel prizes. But the likes of Sakharov who either defected or spoke against the system were "gladly" awarded the Nobel prize.
Enough said.

The periodic table is actually the Mendeleev table... what separated it from previous tables that listed the elements is its structure which not only grouped together the various elements in a structure, but because of its logic allowed unknown elements to be predicted and their characteristics to be determined before they were even known.

BTW... for a peace prize listing that does not include Ghandi????

One would ask how Soviet Scientists managed to keep up and maintain parity with the west if all the Nobel prize winners were in the US... did they just copy everything the west did?

Look at the field of space... the US had Robert H Goddard... the Soviets had Konstantin Tsiolkovsky...

No wonder Nobel wasn't given to Soviet scientists because of Cold War. It wouldn't work good for propaganda.
Today there is no such thing. Russians are no strangers in Nobel ceremony. But fact remains that brain drain was massive in 20 years. It's not all doom and gloom when You actually speak with people from science village like Pushchino. There is project called "to revive science". A number of Russian science people who work in west or moved to business in Russia come to attend ZPSh orchestred by M.Roitberg and more important meetings . They are not getting paid for that, but there are still people who do care. Russian science today hangs on fanatics who put greater good above money and even themselves.

Everything in the west seems to be money driven... wasn't there a Russian mathematician who solved an incredibly difficult equation that has been plaguing western experts for a very long period... there was a substantial prize offered for anyone to solve it, but the Russian who solved the problem refused the prize.

Read about it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/grigori-perelman-reclusiv_n_511938.html

And note the comments below... I just read the first page but most seem fixated that he refuses money for what he does... which is of course understandable... because maths has always been about the money right?

I don't really see that as Russian vs West, the guy is just an eccentric (but genius) hermit, you get those types in any country.

As Sa'iqa wrote:@Werewolf, flamming_python:
The claim that USSR had zero unemployment and the best education system is extremely shaky. Of course officially everyone was employed somewhere but that was the result of structural overemployment, not of some miraculous properties of centrally planned economy. State controlled enterprises hired too many people, there were factories in which only 1/3 people actually had something to do, the rest did nothing and got their wages.

I don't disagree; many methods were used to fool or subvert statistics.
For example I remember an interview with an Ossetian former communist official; about how they used to bring their unemployment rates way down by simply taking 2 people for a job in a factory when in fact only one was needed.

But as for education; the statements are quite close to the truth.
In the 70s every 3rd scientist in the world lived in the USSR.

Regarding Soviet education - USSR had one of the best scientific education in the world, especially in the area of theoretical mathematics, physics, engineering etc. But it was USA that built more and better cars, roads, trains, aircraft, electronics, and later (beginning from early 80s) better tanks. 50% of all Nobel Prize winners were either Americans or Europeans working in USA.  

There were 2 classes of production in the USSR; military/industrial, and civilian/consumer. Naturally the former was focussed on to the outright neglect of the later.

No wonder Nobel wasn't given to Soviet scientists because of Cold War. It wouldn't work good for propaganda. Today there is no such thing. wrote:

What a utterly stupid nonsense that is!

It is today even more hardcore propaganda tool than ever.

Please give me a proper explanation why exactly the Peace Nobel Prize was given to Obomba and the entire EU while they had illegal wars RUNNING?

Why till this day only one Chinese was even offered to get, Again, PEACE Nobel Prize for beeing critical towards his government?

The Nobel Prize is just a worthless prize used as political propaganda tool.

You can just follow all this shit Peace Nobel Prize fArses and watch one after another westerner warmongers will recieve it.

Kissinger or Brzeziński who has even recieved awards for his struggles for human rights.... i laughed so hard i had muscle ache the very next day.
Why so many warmonger and constant Anti-russian/Anti-soviet scum that have made decisions with the aim to kill millions of people to establish an empire.

There is nothing Nobel about it!