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In one team

April 10, 2013 George Satarov

"At first there were values"

From the first version of the Bible,

rejected by higher censorship

"And he said that this is good"

All that remains of the first option
In the last, approved

I was carried away by the correspondence of Tom Graham and Liliya Shevtsova on the "hedgehog". This turned out to be an amazing intellectual adventure. And that's why. First, I read the article of the first author - and it was boiling retreating. Well, you can't! And I decided to write an angry answer. But Lilia Fedorovna was ahead of me, and without anger, but calmly and masterfully. The first impression of the answer was this: I can’t write. Lying do not beat. But then I began to eat some kind of worm (thought in the mind) from the inside). And suddenly an insight came. Well, how did she not notice it!? The same on our side! We are in the same team! I will explain. We are familiar with Tom. Well, not densely, but still enough to have time to understand what a smart and subtle person who knows Russia and related to it kindly. And for the second time reading the article, I turned on the old Soviet skill: reading between lines. And everything became clear! The article was written to expose American "strategists", which he, at first glance, protects. Tom does it subtly enough so that it could not be found and branded like an agent of Lilia Shevtsova (there, in America). But those who see and think will see and understand everything. Written below is not a condescending lecture for the blind and stupid, but simply a description of the individual results of my insight by reading between the lines (and the lines themselves, however). Maybe someone will complement or correct me. I will be glad.

Of course, first of all, the term “strategists” itself are striking, who indicate people who consult and promote Russian policy of Barack Obama. This term is literally pedaling in the article, imposed on the reader. Like, look! Well, what are they strategists!? Banal nearby cynics, nothing more (explanations below). And this, perhaps, is the main exposure for which we should be grateful to that Graham. Well, now - to the details.

One of the main lines of anti -American propaganda in Russia is extremely cynical: they are the same as us. There are two parts. First, the recognition of power: yes, we are vile. This is a bait to which trust is gained. Opponents of the Putin regime peck on this. And here is the hook: but - and they have the same. And corruption. And democracy is only a screen. And they are children ... and they peck at it. Moreover, those who are not indifferent, who do not accept the current Russian reality and want changes. And Tom gives us the opportunity to understand why they peck: because the policy of “strategists” is extremely cynical. And this is seen by caring people in Russia by their actions. And then they begin to think like this: they really compete with ours. All these democratic fairy tales to them. And then they went ... But with them - she went there their vaunted democracy. We need a strong honest leader. And without any of these finhtifs. Here is such a result of joint efforts: there are American “strategists” on stage, and behind the scene of the choir of Putin's propaganda. And I understand that Tom is outraged, so he unobtrusively, non -discontactly leads us to the conclusion described by me.

It is important to note that, as Tom and Lilia are convinced, no US foreign policy is able to help a change in the situation in Russia, but that it can easily harm is not just obvious. This inevitably follows from the above example. And we must be grateful to Tom Graham for showing how the “strategists” of the American president achieve this.

But Tom goes even further. He intercepts the game in “they are the same as us,” and brilliantly plays his party. Its plot is as follows: our “strategists” are the same cynics as your officials, you have in Russia. ” This motive begins at the very beginning of the article, when the author talks about the "strict and consistent commitment of" strategists "to the interests of America." Reader, read this phrase out loud. Did you feel something familiar? Yeah! This is the word "hard." Do you remember who loves him? Now you understand how subtle, on the subcortex, Tom Graham works? And further, throughout the article, this motive is developing and clarifying. And it becomes clear to us that for the "strategists" politics is a game with a zero sum. And then we will immediately recognize our own in them. After all, they, relatives, are convinced that any winning of the other is your defeat. And their conviction applies to foreign policy and domestic.

This is another pedaling constantly used by Tom Graham. He makes us understand: our own interests are important and spit on the other side. Cynically and extremely ineffective. And Tom perfectly understands this, like Lilia Shevtsova, like me. In such a complex, interdependent world, antagonistic games with a zero sum are impossible, mutually disclosure. Some Middle Ages.

Another signal that gives us Tom is the use of the term “state interests”, namely, of course, “strategists” in America defend. And this is exactly the category that the Putin regime justifies any of its crime against citizens, against the country. By this, the author once again makes us understand who the “strategists” are, that they are akin to our officials who do not know any interests other than their skins. He once again neatly undresses and exposes the "strategists."

There are two aspects. First: in English there is no equivalent to Putin's beloved concept “state interests”. Do not speak English intersts or Power Interests. They say - National Inrerests. The reason is simple. A modern democratic state is a corporation created by citizens, funded and hired by them for the production of public goods. She cannot have her own interests. Some people (personal interests) and social groups (social interests), such as pensioners, youth, bureaucrats, lovers of badminton, etc. have interests. And among social interests there are the most ambitious, related to all residents of the country, such as “security”, “prosperity”, etc. They say National about all the inhabitants of the country, hence National Inrerests. In our country, the concept of National corresponds in the Constitution the expression "multinational Russian people." If Tom Graham did not set himself the noble task that I am writing about, he could write “national interests” in the Russian translation, and we would understand it; He could translate the “interests of the country”, and he would have understood even more people. But he wrote “state interests”, being an expert on Russia and the Russian language. And we understood him. Exactly as he wanted.

And now the second aspect. Tom was a witness to my conversation in my office in an Indem with his colleague, whom he knows very well. I'm afraid to make a mistake in the date, but somewhere around 2003. The colleague set out the following story. He participates in negotiations at the level of performers with Russian partners and suddenly discovers that they are pulling in the direction opposite to the one about which the Russian and American presidents agreed and about which they gave the relevant instructions to their performers. The Americans ask, they say, how so!? After all, this is the opposite of what Putin instructed you! And in response they hear: "So what?" And he, that colleague, asks me at the meeting the question: “George! We do not understand what is happening!? How can this be? ”

Now that colleague and Tom understand what is happening (and they both know that I understand the same thing, and here in Russia not only I understand). They understand that in almost any negotiations on the other side of the table opposite them, Russian officials are sitting, maximum cynical, baking only about their interests. That in these negotiations it is pointless to appeal not only to values, mutual or “state” interests, but even to the presidential instructions. They understood this in the second half of the zero. And for this reason, as it seems to me, the Symmetric Russian policy of Obama in relation to Russia, seeking to measure cynicism with ours, which Tom Graham and about the futility of which Lilia Shevtsova is hinted at. Moreover, I risk expressing the assumption that the list of Magnitsky arose precisely because of this new understanding of the nature of the Russian government; This is an exit to the public sphere of that failed fact that in negotiations with our officials, Americans can appeal for a long time only to their personal interests.

I even had the feeling that Tom in the article begins to identify his “strategists” with Putin’s officials, to confuse them. And for this, thank him very much.

Another derivatively revealing thing in the article by Tom Graham is his description of the deep approach of “strategists” to Russian-American relations, which implies long-term and other remarkable qualities. They are declared at the beginning of the article, and then consistently brought to the absurdity by the author himself, when it comes to specifics. It is revealed, for example, that the agenda of negotiations and the search for reciprocity, well, does not pull at least some long-term. Actually, this is not in the traditions of Americans. Their horizon is involuntarily limited by the time of the powers of the current president and the tactical tasks of holding power in the transition from the first term to the second.

I want to catch the battery relay and give as an example one plot. I will not reproach the American Sovietists who overslept the collapse of the USSR - they were not alone. But a giant nuclear power broke up! How is that?! Jokes? But then everything worked out. The collapse occurred relatively peacefully, and Russia took responsibility for the nuclear potential of the USSR. And now let the “strategists” imagine the continuation of the Putin course, with their connivance, the main threat of which is the collapse of Russia. They already discussed what would happen to the nuclear potential remaining from the USSR? Who will control it or some of its parts? And how is it fraught with? And how is this composed with the long -term interests of the United States? Are they sure that the decay of Russia is useful to them? And their partners in Europe? Yes, do not care about it "strategists." They are always sure that serious troubles will occur at the next legislature. Here is such a "strategy."

I grab my hands and "step on the throat of my own song." And so the text dragged on. I want to express at the end the hope that my article will not be translated and published in the United States. I'm afraid to bring the anger of "strategists" and their employers on Tom Graham. He is out of the best motives, and I ... Therefore, in conclusion, I want to apologize to Tom for my insight and thank him not only from myself, but also from the readers of the Hedgehog. I hope that Lilia Fedorovna, reading my article, will join this gratitude.

PS

And yet about values. Only three sentences.
First, values ​​appear, and then some of them are embodied in the norms.
General standards do not work if they are not based on common values.
Ergo: It makes no sense to agree on common standards, if there are no common values.

Photo by hedgehog / Maria Olendskaya