Mark Steyn: The death of Mother Russia

The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 10/22/05 | Mark Steyn

[jb6]

kneck == neck That's what I get for laying off the coffee today.

[GarySpFc]

Firstly, Russian men do not live to 56, which is an exaggeration on Steyn's part.
Maybe, but do you have any references to refute him?

The CIA World Fact Book for Russia lists the following"

total population: 67.1 years
male: 60.55 years
female: 74.04 years (2005 est.)


Regarding the abortion issue I cannot at this time provide the facts. I was involved in the pro-life movement for many years as an officer of a large ogranization, and so this has been a special interest of mine. I do know 12 to 14 abortions per woman was common not too long ago. However, I have chatted with Russian doctors and my Russian wife is a child psychologist, and they say there has been a dramatic change in the number of births.

[Mi-kha-el]

Sad but true.

[Mi-kha-el]

You don't outlaw anything in Russia, çause it will give birth (pun not intended) to a whole black market industry. Where there is demand, there is offer. And the Russian have learned to bypass the laws over the decades like no one in the world, since many of the laws were simply absurd.

[NCSteve]

I don't want to get into a long debate defending Steyn's statistics, mostly because I have no clue where he got them, but MarMema's link provides life expectancy information (67 years) that is according to the US Census Bureau. Obviously, the US census bureau doesn't collect this information themselves and the link doesn't offer the actual source. UK Media indicates that the UN thinks Russian Men's life expectancy to be 61 years. The Russian Health Minister said in 2000, "Experts say drug abuse and sexually-transmitted diseases are potent new factors in declining male life expectancy, which has plunged from 64 years in the 1980's to less than 59 years today." Meanwhile, the Rand corporation said in 1997, "The Russian fertility rate has declined to among the world's lowest, while its abortion rate is the highest." That assertion is backed by facts and figures (http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1273)

I don't see anything among the short searching I have done that fundamentally undercuts Steyn's thesis.

[hattend]

BTTT

[A. Pole]

It was a poultry complaint but indicative of a retreat into old-school Kremlin paranoia. Putin was sending America’s chickens home to roost. I wonder if Bush took a second look into the soulful depths of Vladimir’s eyes and decided he wasn’t quite so finger-lickin’ good after all.

Russia was not allowed to be a member of WTO, does not have free trade agreements with US (actually Russia is under punitive Soviet era Jackson-Vanik sanctions what severely limits her ability to export to USA).

Why trying to protect Russian industry should be considered something evil, paranoic or hostile?

[lizma]

bump for later

[GarySpFc]

I don't want to get into a long debate defending Steyn's statistics, mostly because I have no clue where he got them, but MarMema's link provides life expectancy information (67 years) that is according to the US Census Bureau.

You have old, old data from the 1990's, which is way out of date and wrong. See my post #82.

[TopQuark]

My opinion of Russia is that communism raised generations to depend on an all-powerful government to tell them what to do and provide them sustenance.

That has always been a part of Russia, even before the communists. Paternalistic feudal estates, paternalistic tsar...

It's a common misconception to attribute all evils to communism. Perhaps, the reverse is true: communism took hold fist in the country where common folk looked up to power from a "good tsar," a " good duke." They merely exchanged those for a "good politburo."

I hope Russia gets their act together because they have a great potential for good throughout the world.

That too has been the hope of the West for centuries, perhaps because Russia is Christian. That hope has never materialized; there is no empirical evidence to support that hope. And, besides, "the one that has been a slave for long cannot be a friend" (Nietzsche).

[eleni121]

A Latvian friend of mine that served in the Soviet Army once told me that all the peoples the Russians had sucked into their empire hated them and were waiting for a chance at payback
_______________________________________________________
I hope your Latvian friend feels the same way about the Latvian Communists who were part of the Soviet Empire and war machine.

And the Georgian Commies
and the German Commies
and the Ukrainian Commies
And the Jewish commies
and the Polish Commies etc. etc.

[RusIvan]

Funny:)). Great reading nut guy is so wrong:).

"Russia always is not that weak as she seems but not that strong as she shows" - I'm not sure but it is Bismark.

Russia already 1000 year old. SO she passed so many crisises already that new one won't kill her.

[piceapungens]

When radical Islam seeped into the Balkans none other than BILL CLINTON was there to help, by dropping bombs on Christian Serbs. This is a crime that must one day be exposed and that Billy-Boy needs to be held responsible for.

[Aquinasfan]

as the Club of Rome warned in its 1972 landmark study The Limits To Growth, the world will run out of gold by 1981, of mercury by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead and gas by 1993. Instead, poor old Russia is awash with resources but fatally short of Russians — and, in the end, warm bodies are the one indispensable resource.

Sadly, the notion that there are too many people and too few resources is still common wisdom.

[untenured]

Here are World Bank data, if you are interested:

Female
1990 74.3
1991 73.8
1992 72.0
1993 71.2
1994 71.7
1995 72.5
1996 73.0
1997 73.2
1998 72.5
1999 72.4
2000 72.0
2002 72.2
2003 72.1

Male
1990 63.8
1991 63.5
1992 62.0
1993 59.0
1994 57.6
1995 58.3
1996 59.8
1997 61.0
1998 61.3
1999 60.0
2000 59.0
2002 59.8
2003 59.7

(I don't have 2001 or 2004 data.)

[Centurion2000]

I hope Russia gets their act together because they have a great potential for good throughout the world. But they will need to raise a generation of people full of self-determination before they will be able to have the impact I wish for them.

I'm actually thinking that by the time I am ready to retire, Russia will make a decent place to retire to.

[eleni121]

You are right. I was there in 1995 and again in 2004. The differences were amazingly clear in housing, services, attitudes etc. I wish the Russian people the best. They have been though hell and back.

Of course, Putin needs to be stronger on terror. But then again we refused to hand over a Chechnyan Muslim terrorist to them.

[alwaysconservative]

This clear-eyed view of the death of Russia has to hurt Old Europe, which is following so closely in the footsteps on the path to self-destruction.

Thanks for the ping!

[A Longer Name]

Steyn is great but he does have a blind spot about Eastern Europe.

[hosepipe]

Mother Russia has always been a whore at the head of a strange family.. Follow the money.. no doubt it will lead back to the John(s)...

We do need a Jerry Springer type of a political pundit..
Disfunctional political familys are the norm as opposed to a mere curiosity.. Trailer park politics, like in Canada..