(np) but who would?

[Michael Bailey]

While I agreed with this, I meant to differ slightly with this one
expression: “Right wing fascism has deep historical roots in Russia. No way
was it going to be transformed into some Harvard version of western
capitalism by "Shock Therapy"

Imho, not only societies inured to fascism would fail to be liberalized by
“Shock Therapy.” It’s a sucky strategy invented by people like Summers, who
suck, and its results always suck.


Jody 2.718 wrote:

Larry Summers- I'd half forgotten about that clown. What a disaster,
along with the rest of the geniuses at Harvard, like Andrei Schleifer,
who were going to "fix" Russia with "Shock Therapy," and ended up
creating a feeding trough for the Oligarchs, and maybe themselves. But
Pinochet was only a more recent model for Putin. From an historical
perspective, Putin is more of what Solzhenitsyn was hoping for- a
Tsar-like figure in concert with the Orthodox Church that would
restore morality and order, as opposed to the decadence of the West,
which, in his mind, was destroying Russia at that time. In fact,
Solzhenitsyn, who passed in 2008, welcomed Putin. Solzhenitsyn also
could not conceive of Ukraine being anything other than a part of
Russia. Autocratic?- no problem, deeply ingrained in the Russian
psyche.

Right wing fascism has deep historical roots in Russia. No way was it
going to be transformed into some Harvard version of western
capitalism by "Shock Therapy". Palast is right on.