Russia Sucks

Dubya's good ole' boy, Vladdie Putin, recently said this:

MOSCOW - The collapse of the Soviet Union was "the greatest political catastrophe of the last century," Russian president Vladimir Putin said Monday as he delivered his annual state of the nation address.

I can't say I agree with this. I believe the collapse of the Soviet Union was the second greatest political achievement of the twentieth century. After the defeat of Hitler, of course. The legacy of the USSR is one of economic ruin, ideological bankruptcy, racism, alcoholism, laziness, and, of course, terrible, terrible architecture. The Soviet Union left no legacy of great art, unless you count the authors like Sholzenytzen (sp?) who wrote about how awful it was. The collapse of the USSR was absolutely necessary. It spread ideological filth around the world in an unprecedented way. South America still stinks of it, although their capitalist systems inevitably fall into corruption. Maybe that continent just needs a lobotomy. Or they could outsource their collective governments to Singapore, which actually wouldn’t be such a bad idea. But they better not interfere with one of the world’s greatest treasures, the bottom-shaking Brazilian woman. The biggest problem of the hangover (perhaps the worst hangover in history) is jealousy. Before, under the old system, everyone was poor. Your run-of-the-mill neurologist lived in a crappy concrete apartment tower next to the construction worker. Now the neurologist drives an Audi. And the construction worker still lives in the crappy flat. Although everyone has benefited politically, the economic situation is more mixed. Well, by mixed I mean 10,000 times better. But some people do not benefit. Pensioners still are poor, and are jealous when they see their neighbours get a new car. People who have suddenly found themselves in a comfortable middle-class lifestyle feel guilty and vote for socialist parties. Was the collapse of the USSR hard on people in Russia? Yes. But the simple existence of the Soviet government was even harder. By the end they couldn’t manage to produce toilet paper. And the politicians alone were producing large quantities of shit.