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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Baby Boom for Cannon Fodder |
| 2006-05-18 |
| Lisa Vronskaya - MosNews Authoritarian rulers have always loved children. Or would it be more honest to say, they feigned their love for the little ones? Perhaps, they realized — even though they hated the idea — that sooner or later they would have to yield to the younger generation. But they also knew that to win their people’s hearts, it was enough to shower warmth and affection on a few babies and their mothers. We still remember pictures of Lenin, “grandad Lenin” to us, surrounded by children, from our schoolbooks, the same “grandad” who left a bloody trail behind him in history. We remember old Soviet-era newsreels featuring Josef Stalin holding a little girl, smiling kindly — that smile that still makes thousands shudder across the globe — as he watches hundreds of jubilant demonstrators marching through the Red Square... Vladimir Putin toes the line. In his latest state-of-the-nation address, the Russian leader championed the role of motherhood in tackling the demographic crisis in this country. He made it quite clear, though, that the problem of the dwindling population was especially acute, not for the nation on the whole, but for the Defense Ministry, being short of children meant it had trouble manning Russia’s ailing armed forces. Putin voiced concern over the pace at which the Russian population has been shrinking over the past decades. Demographics researchers warn that if the most pessimistic models hold, the decline could make the country a vast, under-populated state within four or five decades, a country with too few healthy people for a competitive work force or a capable army. “It seems that the Defense Ministry is the only institution that understands why it is necessary to solve the demographic problem in Russia,” Andrei Illarionov, former presidential aide and, since recently, vocal critic of the Kremlin regime, said commenting on Putin’s remark that the Defense Ministry understood quite well the importance of such notions as love, women and children. What do they know about “love” in the army? While love means nothing without respect for human life and dignity, the Russian armed forces are plagued with bullying, so-called “non-statutory relationships”, with conscripts beaten, molested and driven to suicide? Kids left disabled, crippled for life with their genitals amputated! And he says the Defense Ministry understands such things as love and children… Had he been just a bit more honest — although he is quite frank, of course — he could have openly said: “Give us cannon fodder!” Indeed, he did not go as far as Josef Stalin, as The New York Times noted last week, and encouraged women to give birth by offering Medals of Maternal Glory to repopulate a country thinned by repression and war. What Putin did offer, though, is financial support to women who give birth to more than one child and families who adopt children. Not in the form of cash payments, of course, for he knows better how to deal with those seemingly enormous sums of money. Families will apparently be entitled to certain benefits and subsidies, while real cash will go to maternity hospitals, schools, and property developers. I don’t have any children. Never wanted any. Never knew the joy of childbirth, and, to be honest, don’t miss it. I would not have children for money. It sounds indecent, at least. Much has been said and written lately in Russia about the “immorality” of surrogate motherhood, but there at least we have an honest contract — a woman sells her body to a desperate couple who need her help in carrying their child and once it is born she can rest assured he, or she, will be loved and cared for. Our government wants us to have children, for a meager fee that real estate professionals say would not even suffice to secure a mortgage loan… Then they will send our children to war (even if officially Russia is not at war with anyone) and have them beaten, molested, driven to suicide, or killed. I am not talking here of Chechnya alone, the ever-bleeding hot spot of Russia that is likely to bleed for years ahead. They are trying to solve the crisis through good old militaristic methods. At the same time they insist that their objective is to build a free democratic society under the rule of law. Vladimir Putin has given me another excuse for not having children. Ever. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 Russian analysts estimating a demographic loss of at least 50.0Milyuhn by 2050. Having many many kids as a way to increase odds of familial-societal survival works only when parents believe change is possible - once they believe change is not possible, having extra kids only adds to their perennial problems, and no longer represents a solution. * "IFF MEN BUILD IT, THE WOMEN WILL COME OR SPEND IT" - Russia and its aging, dying, declining population should serve as an example of why world Socialism, West and East, and regardless of form, both need to adopt the American model, NOT the other way around. EUROS, includ RUSSIA + EASTERN EUROPE > Americans are several times richer than the Euros despite the Euros having a larger total population and enjoying myriad public benefits than Americans do. While its certainly better to be a Fascist Socialist than a Communist Socialist, Fascism including Clintonian Communist-controlled Fascism, aka Leftism-controlled Rightism, is at best a TEMPORARY SOLUTION to the internal or ideo defects or problems of Govt.-centric Socialism, i.e. Governmentism. When Socialism tells men that Govt., Public Institutions, Society, or Third Parties will do everything for them, that men are no longer needed for anything save to be a sperm donor, the male psyche tells a man he no longer has to worry or care about anyone or anything except his male-centric, self-centric, personal individual needs and desires, NOT women, NOT family, NOT kids, NOT S-E-X or Romance or Marriage, Not the Job or the Mortage or the Taxes or Retirement or the Car(s) or the Investments, Not Society or Govt or the City or the Nation, nada and no one, everyone nor everything. The man's job becomes to enjoy himself, by and for and only for himself, no longer the Babe or the Kid(s) or the World or even God. Someone else is now the Warrior-Leader-Protector-Provider-Organizer-Innnovator in any each every and all things. A Man now becomes a lazy ass hedonist-bohemian whose sole purpose in life is to collect and spend the Monies Govt gives him, and only for him, before he dies. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-05-19 00:01 |
| #1 Medals of Maternal Glory = Her Os of Labors. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-05-18 16:53 |