More Thoughts on Russia> Rant

I just read an interesting article in Foreign Affairs Magazine entitled “Russia Leaves the West” by Dmitri Trenin. It explained why Putin and Russia have been paying less heed to Western criticism lately and what the future portends. I knew the main reason was that the price of oil is very high and they have a lot of oil. The other reason, which seems pretty obvious, but I hadn’t really though about it, is that Russia doesn’t like the way the Western world treats it. Since the fall of the Soviet Union we have treated them like a developing country instead of the 1st world nation they think they are. Just one example is we let them into the G-7, but they haven’t been given full membership privileges. They feel like the West gives them shit no matter what they do. (Gee, can you think of another Superpower that gets shit no matter what it does?) So much like a pregnant teen on Jerry Springer they said fuck it, “We do what we want… Whatevah.” Anyway, I understand their perspective more now, but I still have some serious problems with Russia. I wrote this in my journal while traveling but forgot to add it to my blog:

“What really jerks my Tolstoy is why Russia is so backwards ass. All over the world places are backwardsass you may be saying. True. I can handle it when it is because people are inept, incompetent and lazy. The thing is in Russia things are this messed up because they want it like this. By "they" I mean the government, the mafia and sadly the people also. I think they like being miserable. One example is playing pool here. The balls are almost larger than the pockets. They need to be wedged in to go down. I played a one hour game of pool that was only finished through some miraculous shots and a tub of Vaseline. Fucking Russia.”