The biggest loser

The queue to the first Mcdonalds that opened in 1990 in Moscow was phenomenal. However, such a queue was only expected right after the fall of the Berlin Wall and a dissolution of Soviet-style Communism.

After all, a bright emblem of Capitalist consumerist modernity had just set up shop in the tattered halls of Communist economy.

Zoom forward to today: President Vladimir Putin is cracking down on Mcdonalds in Russia (there are 208 outlets in Moscow itself), to retaliate against U.S. sanctions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Yet, McDonalds is no longer a shiny badge of American capitalism; if anything, it's an emblem of Capitalism with a capital C claiming no Cold War-era allegiance with a particular nation. In today's global economy, Capital reigns supreme and Capital will do just about anything to adjust to the conditions of the market in which it operates. It's sole interest is to thrive.

McDonalds, like other mega corporate entities, is highly transnational. The golden arch seeks not to impose anymore, but to blend in with the local.

So, the joke is on Putin, who being a sad relic of the Cold War, uses outmoded Cold War tactics to fight a battle which has no name except, perhaps, "a poor facsimile of the Cold War". Putin also resorts to Cold War propaganda, or a war of words conducted via Twitter, to distract and deceive global attention from his misdoings in Ukraine. the other day somebody wrote of how Putin has revived the culture of Orwellian newspeak/doublespeak, something that the other Vladimir, Vladimir Nabokov, made mincemeat of in his novels.

The Russian Mcdonalds is for all practical purposes very Russian, in that it caters to Russian taste and Russian appetite and most significantly, sources its meat and veggies from Russian farmers. As reported by Quartz, two Russian companies, Wimm-Bill-Dann and Barybino State Farm, have got so successful supplying lettuce and milk to McDonalds, that they registered in the New York Stock Exchange.

By cracking down on the Russian McDonalds, Putin has cracked down on his own. What might he be fighting against? Capital itself? Then there is no winning. In his insistence on wielding the Cold War lance Putin is getting to be the biggest loser.

The Gulag Archipelago no more

A place of slavery, degradation and death no more, the Siberia of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's rendition is but a shadow of the past.

Today, the Siberian landmass comprising Russia's Asian hinterland, and the size of the U.S.A. and India put together, is coveted by China.   

Siberia is oil and mineral rich, and very under populated for its size, while China is overpopulated, and being the world's factory, as it were, needs raw materials available aplenty in neighboring Siberia.

Most importantly, the border between the Sino-Russian border that allocates Siberia to Russia, was arbitrarily drawn during the Peking Convention of 1860 when China was significantly weakened by the Second Opium War.

Borders, as put eloquently by Frank Jacobs, are like love and are real only both sides believe in it. China's belief in the immanence of the border is wavering as its fortunes in geopolitics has been tremendously reversed since 1860.

Maps of the world were largely drawn by the Western powers; they are up for redrawing. China could very well bugger Russia with the logic of the same pointy stick that Russia has buggered Crimea with.

Better to be a riotous pussy than a monologuing vagina

The absolutely witty and intelligent and very brave, Russian renegade rock band, Pussy Riots on The Stephen Colbert show:

The Colbert Report and Pussy Riots Part 1

The Colbert Report Part 2