Yesterday Ivan Safronov was sentenced to 22 years in jail. Russian liberal media describe him as a "journalist" picturing it as Kremlin's crackdown on political opposition. That's misinformation. Safronov *used* to be a journalist. Then he worked in Roskosmos as Rogozin's advisor
Indeed, for many years Safronov worked as a journalist, first in Kommersant, then in Vedomosti. In May 2020 though he was hired by the Roskosmos state corporation, as a PR advisor of its CEO Dmitry Rogozin
Roskosmos is a defense megaholding, a product of Putin's consolidation of the military industrial compex. Rosatom is doing nuclear warheads, KTRV - cruise missiles, Almaz-Antey - air defence, Rostec - well, everything. Roskosmos is producing ballistic missiles, including ICBMs
May 2020 - Roskosmos CEO Rogozin hires Safronov
July 7, 2020 - Safronov is arrested for treason
Summer 2020 - Rogozin is interrogated as a witness
August 24, 2020 - Rogozin tells he won't fire Safronov until the verdict. Safronov is stilll his advisor
July 15, 2022 - Rogozin is fired from Roskosmos. Putin's adviser Peskov tells that "in a due time" they gonna find him a new job. Now it's September and they still haven't, apparently vedomosti.ru/politics/news/…
September 5, 2022 - Rogozin's advisor Safronov is sentenced to 22 years
Summary:
Media describe Safronov as a "journalist". That's oversimplification at best, misinformation at woest. His last job was at the ballistic missiles producing megaholding Roskosmos. It is highly likely that prosecution of Safronov was an attack directed at CEO Rogozin
Rogozin was probably the biggest PRmaxer in the Russian military industry. That's overcompensation. Of all the top managers of the military industry he was probably the weakest, administrative weight-wise (Chemezov is the strongest). Now he's eaten and kicked out from the circle
Apparently Rogozin lost in the bulldog under the rug. He was stripped of his position as the CEO of Roskosmos and is not likely to return to a position of power anytime soon. I can't prove that they prosecuted and jailed Safronov to "drown" Rogozin. But it is highly likely
Now let's review Safronov himself. Social media are as usually a great source on the political stance and views. That's Safronov's tweet on the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014
Did he end up in Crimea during its annexation by Russia accidentally? Not quite
This Safronov is a witty guy, isn't he?
Just few days later, Ivan Safronov @isafronov called for the nuclear war as a response to the Western sanctions imposed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I think I am starting to get why Rogozin would hire him as a PR advisor
In July 2022 this chickenhawk who used to call for the nuclear war was hired by a major defence corporation Roskosmos, producing ballistic missiles. Very soon he (most likely) fell a victim to the fight between the big bosses, suffering due to his proximity to CEO Rogozin
Now you see Russian liberal opposition picturing Safronov as a "journalist" (he used to be once) who suffered for "doing his work" if not for political dissidence. Rather than because he chose the wrong big boss to work for - which is the most likely explanation of what happened
When you hear the news from Russia, be aware that they're filtered by the Moscow establishment which cares for their corporate interests and privilege more than anything else in this world. What you read is the corporate interest of a parasite class disguised as objective truth
Lamentations of "oppositionaries" about Darya Dugina's death surprised many. But it's not surprising at all. Darya Dugina is a fellow parasite from the Moscow upper class, belonging to the same social circles as them. Ofc they're gonna lament her. They see her as one of their own
Same with Safronov. He is of the same social class, of the same social circles. Thus Moscow establishment gonna picture him in the most favourable light possible, as an innocent victim, rather than as a collateral loss in the bulldog fight under the rug (which is the most likely)
Reading/listening to news from Russia, keep in mind that they have been selected, constructed and promoted by a narrow circle of Moscow establishment, who don't hesitate to use this leverage for advancing their corporate interest and guarding their corporate privilege. The end
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For decades, any resistance to the Reaganomics has been suppressed using the false dichotomy: it is either “capitalism” (= which meant Reaganomics) or socialism, and socialism doesn’t work
Now, as there is the growing feeling that Reaganomics don’t work, the full rehabilitation of socialism looks pretty much inevitable
I find it oddly similar to how it worked in the USSR. For decades, the whole propaganda apparatus had been advancing the false dichotomy: it is either socialism, or capitalism (= meaning robber barons)
Now, as there is a growing feeling that the current model does not work, we must try out capitalism instead. And, as capitalism means robber barons, we must create robber barons
We have to distribute all the large enterprises between the organized crime members. This is the way
Truth is: the words like Rus/Russian had many and many ambiguous and often mutually exclusive meanings, and not only throughout history, but, like, simultaneously.
For example, in the middle ages, the word "Rus" could mean:
1. All the lands that use Church Slavonic in liturgy. That is pretty much everything from what is now Central Russia, to what is now Romania. Wallachians, being the speakers of a Romance language were Orthodox, and used Slavonic in church -> they're a part of Rus, too
2. Some ambiguous, undefined region that encompasses what is now northwest Russia & Ukraine, but does not include lands further east. So, Kiev & Novgorod are a part of Rus, but Vladimir (-> region of Moscow) isn't
These two mutually exclusive notions exist simultaneously
The greatest Western delusion about China is, and always has been, greatly exaggerating the importance of plan. Like, in this case, for example. It sounds as if there is some kind of continuous industrial policy, for decades
1. Mao Zedong dies. His successors be like, wow, he is dead. Now we can build a normal, sane economy. That means, like in the Soviet Union
2. Fuck, we run out of oil. And the entire development plan was based upon an assumption that we have huge deposits of it
3. All the prior plans of development, and all the prior industrial policies go into the trashbin. Because again, they were based upon an assumption that we will be soon exporting more oil than Saudi Arabia, and without that revenue we cannot fund our mega-projects
Yes. Behind all the breaking news about the capture of small villages, we are missing the bigger pattern which is:
The Soviet American war was supposed to be fought to somewhere to the west of Rhine. What you got instead is a Soviet Civil War happening to the east of Dnieper
If you said that the battles of the great European war will not be fought in Dunkirk and La Rochelle, but somewhere in Kupyansk (that is here) and Rabotino, you would have been once put into a psych ward, or, at least, not taken as a serious person
The behemoth military machine had been built, once, for a thunderbolt strike towards the English Channel. Whatever remained from it, is now decimating itself in the useless battles over the useless coal towns of the Donetsk Oblast
Yes, and that is super duper quadruper important to understand
Koreans are poor (don't have an empire) and, therefore, must do productive work to earn their living. So, if the Americans want to learn how to do anything productive they must learn it from Koreans etc
There is this stupid idea that the ultra high level of life and consumption in the United States has something to do with their productivity. That is of course a complete sham. An average American doesn't do anything useful or important to justify (or earn!) his kingly lifestyle
The kingly lifestyle of an average American is not based on his "productivity" (what a BS, lol) but on the global empire Americans are holding currently. Part of the imperial dynamics being, all the actually useful work, all the material production is getting outsourced abroad
Reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Set in southwest England, somewhere in the late 1800s. And the first thing you need to know is that Tess is bilingual. He speaks a local dialect she learnt at home, and the standard English she picked at school from a London-trained teacher
So, basically, "normal" language doesn't come out of nowhere. Under the normal conditions, people on the ground speak all the incomprehensible patois, wildly different from each other
"Regular", "correct" English is the creation of state
So, basically, the state chooses a standard (usually, based on one of the dialects), cleanses it a bit, and then shoves down everyone's throats via the standardized education
Purely artificial construct, of a super mega state that really appeared only by the late 1800s