Party Vibe

RU today is worse than the Soviet Union in the 1980s after perestroika (1985 onwards until 1992) – drug use was clearly not condoned/encouraged but they admitted it existed in Soviet society (especially amongst intelligent students and atheletes via loose prescription from doctors).

Ironically back then many European rightwingers thought the late 80s drugs culture was partly a Soviet plot so they could take over the EU whilst it is quite possible the reason those in power in RU today (which is supposedly more democratic than 30 years ago) behave like this is shaped by the events of the early 1990s – the Soviet Union collapsed around the same time and the new CIS countries got flooded with both party drugs and hard drugs in the early 90s from both sides (mainland Europe and Central Asia/Middle East). there was also real political and economic upheaval including civil war in Yugoslavia; leading to permanent divisions and the start of unpleasant religious and racial extremism (which for all its faults the Soviet system had somehow kept a lid on).

Of course paramilitary groups are not averse to funding their operations via drugs leading to all manner of conspiracy theories taking hold in such environments.

that said many reports from Huffpost/Vice and even the Grauniad are very Western-centric (a related one on Vice about SE Asia is shockingly biased and completely ignores big reductions in enforcement and penalties in Malaysia and Singapore) but also somewhat paranoid about the UN and its powers. Even if the UN passed a resolution to legalise the lot RU could still ignore it anyway.

In 1979 UK got ordered by the UN (ITU-R) to shift public service radio comms out of the VHF FM broadcast allocation; which not only held back free media in a supposedly democratic nation and encouraged illegal pirates but also put the blue light officers and citizens in actual danger.

cops understandably mistrusted a comms system that anyone with a slightly modified cheap transistor radio could monitor which was also disrupted by interference from broadcast stations in nearby countries during weather conditions in coastal areas, and austerity policies and fear of foreign companies taking over the equipment market delayed the rollout of more secure equipment. On many occasions in the 80s cops got faced with public order situations often in unfamiliar areas; unable to communicate effectively many simply just resorted to strong force to deal with situations (it was a common joke amongst 1980s cops that the Stornophone VHF set was more useful for clouting folk over the head with than calling for backup as the heavy accu made it more solid than a truncheon)

This shambles (which everyone else in Europe dealt with by the early 80s) was not sorted out in the UK until well into the 1990s – in spite of the UN’s perceived power it simply cannot overrule domestic law and member states can and do delay implementing any suggestions they consider to be to onerous.

@tryptameanie 981600 wrote:

1st, how the fuck do you store so much info in your head?????

it is not easy to just forget an era when so much changed worldwide and yet no one really knew if it was for better or worse. The 90s drugs scene did actually create a camaraderie particularly amongst young men in across Europe that broke down many religious/racial boundaries (at least for those of us lucky enough to end up in relatively affluent middle class areas but equally it divided global society and caused a lot of casualties. Many of todays extremists especially of my age are former party drug users and dealers who have burned out; not too long ago I stopped openly supporting the illegal rave scene here due to many ravers hostility to immgrants and their attitudes to gender issues, LGBT folk etc.

Mr Putin to be fair was one of the better KGB agents – he is not as evil as made out to be and genuinely cares about health, national security and pride and the environment.

I’ve read articles about other KGB agents snorting coke and drinking vodka by the litre whilst extracting confessions from people using a 230V live cable; and stubbing their cigarette out on sensitive parts of the body of the person being interrogated.

It is true they treat addicts like shit but UK since 2010 and two democratic elections is not a great deal better (just because subutex is permitted doesn’t mean its easy to get) – and for Russians who work hard and keep on the right side of the system life isn’t that bad – you rarely hear of illegal Russian immigrants in Europe… I’ve also seen genuine pictures of Mr Putin visiting Russian hospitals where they use the same advanced comms kit deployed at my work and in UK.

The Russian approach is still flawed and harms their country too as it ultimately will increase ill health and depopulation (which is a big problem in RU) but as the article itself mentions folk there are dying of all sorts else anyway; and much of this was worsened by the way USA and European capitalist “activists” helped to disrupt the Soviet system at a time when it could have peacefully evolved into a modern European nation.

@tryptameanie 981604 wrote:

Are we talking about thwe same Russia here? And Putin not being the worst KGB officer ever isn’t really saying that much, The nicest of the nice KGB agents were lunatics.

General Kaspersky of the anti virus company is another of the KGB’s protegés… their political views may be odd by Western standards but all of them had to be well educated (to be fair most Russians in middle class areas are still well educated)

It is easy to get into believing old movie stereotypes about USSR / RU – even in Soviet times the President did not make all the decisions. The word Soviet itself means a council – same as Durham or Suffolk County Council; the only difference beign everyone was in the same political party. They still have debates and votes.

For each nation of the 16 in SU there was a Soviet of the Nation and then the Supreme Soviet for the country wide decisions. Today they have the Duma with more than one political party (although the Unity party tends to hold a majority) but there are some others; includiing hardline communists and right wing extreme parties. The elections are still quite free and fair – although there is regular political violence it is about the same level as Europe in the 1980s.

Many Russian politicians are much younger than Mr Putin, some our are age and it is often them who oppose the reforms because of a backlash against 1990s era hedonism. The same holds back the UK, and even some countries you wouldn’t expect such as Norway and South Africa.

Russia is still split (in fact bitterly divides) between the Soviet Union mindsets and modern views – but the biggest problem is social division over acceptance of drugs divides just about every country in the world and currently the prohibitionists have a very slight majority.

I do feel some personal guilt for this because in the 90s my generation did sometimes behave like shit to the rest of society and the way we kept rave culture and party drugs scenes going was basically by holding everyone else to ransom; if we couldn’t do our drugs we’d do shitty things like vandalism, sabotaging businesses, thieving, setting fires and some acquaintances even got into violence and intimidation including against their parents and partners. We’d also illegally intercept not just cops radio comms but peoples cordless phones and early mobiles to check for snitches. Although those who were smart enough never made overt threats to authorities they knew well that if they didn’t let some parties happen the young peopel could get into far worse (such as how crime in Metpol area increased with London authorities locking off music events).

In the area I then lived in (Thames Valley) this actually overwhelmed the cops to such an extent they now no longer bother with small drug posession cases (whenever I hear Sara Thornton I still think of her as “Echo Alpha Sierra 20! :laugh_at:

Getting back to Russia : consider that as well as compulsory education they still have compulsory military service; but (even compared with soviet times) a lack of paying jobs for young men.

If me and my mates could cause so much shit in a relatively posh middle class bit of England that the cops for some years couldn’t stop the flow and rampant use of drugs and the NHS often had to pick up the consequences; what do you think might happen in a nation full of angry young men with military training? And often when the cops finally clamp down with sufficient and well targeted force so-called “undeground networks” turn on each other instead as they are unable to fight the stronger authority (I noticed that happen on the rave scene about 10 years ago)

@tryptameanie 981640 wrote:

Yeah you’re right GL but I find Eugene Kaspersky a much more chilled man than Putin and some of what went on in years past makes it sound like North Korea (not much of a surprise though). [/quote]

Kaspersky doesn’t have a country to run (I would still not be surprised if he looks under his car every night, sweeps his room with radio monitors for bugs and has some access to “armed close protection” (bodyguards)).

Putin has criticised his own propaganda ministry for taking things too far; for all the “hard man” stuff there is a genuine human side to him (I discovered this about 12 years ago during an online search when working in public service at Defra as I was curious about the Russian Environment Ministry. Those films of him hugging leopards, and searching for other forest creatures are not staged just to make him look good but are proper scientific experiments; I was able to match them up with the Universities and Professors involved (using Google Translate; as Russian is difficult).

My bosses at the time (many of whom had hardly used the Internet) were that impressed that when budget cuts threatened my contract I was offered a transfer to another location in the “West of England” (which I politely declined; although I said I’d be perfectly williing to remain at Defra and help count the animals/plants with the boffins but for some daft reason you need a biology or zoology degree and have to work out in the middle of nowhere).

He also genuinely adored Koni the Labrador (when he split with his wife she kept a poodle but Koni stayed with him) who had been given to him by a KGB boffin as a pup as she failed all the aptitude tests and would have otherwise ended up being used for unpleasant experiments, and the prof knew Mr Putin would look after her. She was actually considerably older than I had though and passed away in 2014 through old age (around the time it kicked off in Ukraine).

Quote:

Also, I thought prior to Putin the Oligarchs played a large role in the decision making but maybe that’s not accurate.

they were often part of the local Soviets and owned many of the important industries.

That said, if you are bored and cannot sleep and your local Council publishes its meeting minutes and licensing info (mine has just put the lot online) download a bunch of them especially decisions about licensing, planning; then search the names of the Councillors via Companies House and Google. See how many links you can find 😉

@tryptameanie 981649 wrote:

Well, Gary Kasparov certainly seemed to have plenty to worry about when he ran for president. Looked dangerous when he beat Anatoly Karpov for the World chess title lol.

there is apparently a whole TOR hidden service “Play Chess with the Russians” – which is precisely just that.

AFAIK chess is not illegal anywhere in the world (it is a particularly popular game in prison) so there must be some reason why these folk go to such trouble to play it online…

@tryptameanie 981653 wrote:

No it’s not illegal anywhere in the world but the soviets took chess VERY seriously (might have been Karpov and Kramnik playing when they spent most of the match kicking each other under the table) but when Kasparov beat Karpov to take the title, Kasparov legged it out of the venue into a waiting car cos he had reason to believe he’d not see the next morning…..

that would make sense – I’ve read a few articles in English Pravda (which became a “youth newspaper” online around end 1990s about folk getting shot following arguments over chess games; in such a climate it would indeed be safer to play it online via darknet (although my chess skills are even worse than my Russian; I lack the concentration skills for either)