Back in late 2008, when Pajamas Media was still having me write articles on Russia (they’ve since stopped asking, I think, because I wasn’t anti-Russian enough), I noted that Americans and Russians long for the return of the Cold War.  Those were the days when “new Cold War” books were all the rage and Russia and American were engaging in some good old proxy warfare in Georgia and Ukraine.  In America, Russia was evil again and that was a good thing.  In Russia, America was evil again and that was a good thing too.  Americaphobes and Russophobes rejoiced in unison.

Enter Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev.  Two “thaw” presidents in their respective countries looking to reform their respective kingdoms in the wake of economic calamity.  The former called for a “new” America, the latter called for a “modernized” Russia.  Both were simply mimicking what their forefathers had strove to do, albeit in their own rhetorical ways.  On their respective domestic fronts the “new” America and the “modernized” Russia continue to look like the “old” America and the “backward” Russia.

While domestics alluded them, their tone vis-a-vis each other shifted.  The “new Cold War” rhetoric of 2008 quickly went from nostalgia to melancholy with the Obama Administration’s aim to “reset” relations with Russia.  The US was looking for some Russian acquiescence in dealing with Iran, and the Russians were looking for investment from the West.  The lovefest, while lacking much by way of anything concrete, nevertheless provided the kindle for a warmer atmosphere. The moves made Neo-Cold Warriors look as if they were barking at the moon. Obama and Medvedev consummated their matrimony with a couple of burgers and fries.

Love was in the air.  That was until 11 spies were uncovered on the Eastern seaboard.  Ten were busted, one flew the coop.  Their mission was to gather information that according to most could have been found in the press and on the internet.  Most of all, it seemed that the scandal would set the stage for Russia and the US to return to their natural place as adversaries.  The Cold War seemed to be on the verge of being back, baby.  Career Russophobes like Ed Lucas were off to see how often the word “chekist” could be tweeted.  The more zany clocked long hours trying to map the six degrees of separation between Anna Chapman’s Facebook friends as if they revealed some deeper conspiracy.  After a brief respite, the Cold War seemed back.  Bolsheviks were breeding once again, this time at our neighborhood barbecues.

Then Obama and Medvedev pissed on the parade.  The spy scandal was much ado about nothing, the duo assured us; especially since the US Justice Department seemed to not have enough to even charge the ten with espionage.  Even the often demonized spymaster Putin laughed off the affair as business as usual.

Nevertheless, though a Cold War redux was dashed, the two-week reality show proved once again that a cultural desire for it lingered.  For most people the desire wasn’t for the real Cold War taste with all its accompanying political fats and calories, but a more processed, nay, produced version to titillate our imaginations.  For the Cold War gives us something the dreaded Wahabbis never can:  to quote Kramer, “The high stakes game of world diplomacy and international intrigue.” Only other white people can do that, and the Russians are just “white” enough.

For a good week it was like old school James Bond all over again. Sexy spy chicks looking to infiltrate the rich and famous, deep cover agents posing a “normal” Americans, aliases, intrigue, disappearing ink, safe drops, secret cables, and spy vs. spy lingo.  The American media was overjoyed.  Between rerun reporting of the BP oil spill, another Lindsay Lohan meltdown, or the LeBronathon, the spy scandal was a breath of fresh air.

Even the British were eager to jump on the bandwagon. In a desperate move to appear relevant as a nation, the British struggled to worm its way into the performance.  MI5 jumped into the fray with its own investigation into the extent Anna Chapman went to honey trap British officials and elites. The security agency even dropped hints that there were at least 500 spies snooping on British soil.

The real exploiters of the spy scandal were the tabloids.  They immediately latched on to Chapman transforming her from a sweet Slavic cutie who lived on Facebook and hung out in Manhattan clubs to a genuine scarlet harlot.  Former lovers were coming out of the woodwork with tales of hot sex spurred on by pantyless stripteases and the sensual sounds of her Russian accent. All of this quickly culminated in the money shot: Chapman nudie pics.  The Russian redhead was now an international star.  Even Jay Leno and VP Joe Biden couldn’t help but mention the sexpot.  The reinstalled Tonight Show host, better known for bad sickly sweet vanilla jokes, asked the VP on a recent appearance: “Are our spies this hot?” “It was not my idea to send her back. I thought they’d take Rush Limbaugh,” Biden retorted. In all, the Culture Industry couldn’t have orchestrated a better PR campaign to generate interest in Angelina Jolie’s upcoming spy thriller, Salt. A sexy “deep cover” Russian spy plotting to kill the US President?  I’m there.  All of it showed that almost twenty years dead, the Cold War still packed some potential entertainment punch.

As for the rest of the spy crew, after a string of articles about how the enemy lives among us, interest in them quickly faded.  It turns out living a suburban life is pretty damn boring.  The only thing scandalous among the suburban spies was how messed up their kids were going to be now that they found out that mommy and daddy weren’t who they said they were.  To make matters worse, the US government sent the kids back to Mother Russia, which one presumes would only redouble the trauma.  How things have changed! If Russia was still Communist, the young-ins would have been paraded all over the media, igniting a movement not seen since Elian Gonzalez to keep them in the righteous US .  They would have been the figureheads for this century’s equivalent to the John Birch Society. But alas, in these post-Cold War times, you’re left to rot unless you’re wearing a burka, and even then you only get your fifteen minutes if an invasion of your country is in the works or a Western friendly “movement” is looking to overthrow your despotic regime.

In the end, the spy scandal had a rather twisted, metatextual but ultimately anticlimactic narrative.  It was Ian Fleming, Hustler‘s “Hot Letters,” and the Coneheads all rolled into one. The script didn’t work not because of the content–all the necessary subplots and cast were in place—but because of the drama’s principle producers–the US and Russia–just didn’t pull the trigger, at least not one that would generate a captivated audience over the long term.

The trigger that was pulled was not without a Cold War “echo,” however.  The best way for the US and Russia to defuse the situation, put the incident in the past, and move on was to revive a Cold War mainstay: the spy swap. There were over a dozen known spy swaps during the Cold War: actual spies, turncoats, dissidents, and missionaries were traded like baseball cards.  Back then espionage was a serious and respected business with a strong code of honor and pride. The practitioners of spy trades conducted themselves cordially with a high sense of decorum, mutual respect, and even affection for each other. Former spy swapper Jeremy Smith told NPR that the negotiations between him and Wolfgang Vogel, his East German counterpart, was like a “dance of two pens” as they tapped the names on their lists of desired agents to get around the bugs in Volker’s office. Smith and Vogel developed a warm relationship despite their adversary positions. They exchanged gifts and for one Christmas, Smith even brought the tryptophan deficient Vogel Butterball turkeys because the bird was scarce in East Germany.

These echoes quickly go faint in the our world of cost-cutting, productivity and profit.  There is just no time for the finesse of the past.  James Bond would have been downsized a long time ago.  If not, his expense account would have surely been drastically cut. Also, this week’s spy swap just had nothing substantive at stake.  The integrity of both our respective civilizations was not questioned simply because we are now all part of the capitalist brotherhood.  Our differences are mere quibbles compared the world historical duel of the past. The current spy scandal, therefore, was no substitute for the “real” ones of the past even if in our media laden present we are accustomed to mistaking the copy for the real.

Indeed, when it came down to it, the performance of the swap was more important than those being swapped.  Just take two of the most publicly recognized figures: Anna Chapman and Igor Sutyagin, the Russian nuclear scientist convicted of spying for the US in 2004.  The former turned out to be a very bad spy, while the latter was most likely not a spy at all. Nor did the exchange come amid any secrecy or setting reminiscent of the Cold War.  There was no equivalent to the Glienicke Bridge.  The world knew the swap was happening before it even happened.  Sutyagin’s people went straight to the press when it was announced that he would be exchanged.  Someone claiming to represent Chapman announced her impending release on Twitter.

It was no Cold War, though the public seemed happy to relish in the possibility.  But like most media sensations the buzz was a far cry for the real thing.  I even doubt that Americans and Russians really wanted the real thing.  They just like the idea of Cold War. It was exciting and it made our culture, our values, and our nations more important.  The world was split between us, our own personal chessboard on a global scale.  So what to make of this spy scandal on a cultural level?  Was there even a scandal at all?  I think the answer to these questions can be surmised from what will surely become one of its iconic phrases: “99 Fake Street.”

Marxist scholar David Harvey has a new book out, The Enigma of Capital, and this means he’s been on the road giving talks to promote it.  One such lecture was at Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London this past April.  You can watch/listen to the talk here.

However, if you want the short version, I suggest watching RSA’s beautiful animation of it below.  It does a good job of adding some visual content to Harvey’s explanation of the crisis of capitalism.

h/t Gopal Balakrishnan

Are your backyard barbecues breeding Bolsheviks?  Deep cover agents posing as a two car garage, 2.3 kid, suburban, all-American family?  Mysterious sultry, salon dyed Slavic redheads friending you on Facebook?  Foreigners who dazzle with superb hydrangea pruning skills?  Watch out America, the Russians are coming, and one of them might look just like you.

There isn’t much to be said about the busted Russian spy ring at this point.  We all know the story of 11 secret agents planted by the “Moscow Center” to dig up information about nukes, policy, and backroom rumors in Washington.  We all have fawned, or read about the fawning over the PG-13 pics of “Anna Chapman,” the femme fatale of this real life Naked Gun movie (if the Chapman obsession wasn’t pathetic enough, now the Marines are now using her to warn sailors about “the use of good-looking women to lower a man’s defenses.” Oh, brother.)  We’ve also have seen how Moscow has laughed all of this off, and though it has questioned it’s timing, hasn’t retaliated in its usual way by expelling American diplomats.  We also know that this scandal will probably not effect any future burger lunches between Obama and Medvedev.  We pretty much know, unless FBI documents reveal otherwise, that Moscow’s “illegals” weren’t very good spies at all.  Finally, we also were informed that Christopher Metsos flew the coop in Cyprus and Juan Lazaro would sell out his kids before violating his “loyalty to the Service.”

Had enough?

Not by a long shot.

Besides all the manufactured drama of this spy ring, which James Meek over at LRB Blog rightly calls “a kind of performance art” fit for an HBO series, what has intrigued me about all of this is how the spies were “a typical, child-obsessed American family.”  Indeed, as Meek notes, the deep cover Russian spies are a real life analogy to the suburban mafiosi in the Sopranos, the drug lords cum legit businessmen in The Wire, or the faux-humanoid aliens of V.  They attended block parties and barbecues, showed up at PTA meetings and picnics, babysat the neighborhood kids, joined social networking sites, and had pretty ordinary jobs.

According to the FBI complaint to the court, becoming just like us was the Russian spies’ primary mission:

The FBI’s investigation has revealed that a network of illegals is now living and operating in the United States in the service of one primary, long-term goal: to become sufficiently “Americanized” such that they can gather information about the United States for Russia, and can successfully recruit sources who are in, or are able to infiltrate, United States policy-making circles.

It appears that they were good at the first part–becoming sufficiently Americanized–but bad at the second–infiltrating US policy-making circles.  Win some, lose some.

For me this dose of spymania says more about America than it does about the ineptness of Russian espionage.  What several of the “illegals” proved was how vapid and boring American suburban life really is.  All “illegals” like the Murphys had to do was pounce around in polo shirts, swig a couple of Diet Cokes, parent a couple of blond children, drive a Beemer, and don a pearly white smile fit for a real estate agent.  They were so good at it that they were able to do it without being married, though some spy to spy booty call was not out of the question.  For spy turned tabloid sensation Anna Chapman, posing as an ambitious twenty-something ready and able to hang out in the NY party scene was easy.  All she had to do was pour some five-and-dime red dye on her head and hit the clubs.  According to one former lover in Britain, Chapman knew how to work it.

Shocked Charlie Hutchinson, 31, said after seeing Anna Chapman’s picture in The Sun: “While we had sex she was talking and moaning in Russian. It lasted for 2½ hours and was so sexy. She was incredible.

The bespectacled law student told how the temptress – arrested by the FBI – was on a night out in Southampton when she jumped into his cab as he headed back to the university’s halls of residence.

He had earlier got talking to her as he boozed with chums at a student pub – called the White House.

Charlie, who is still studying in Southampton three years on, said: “Both of us were drunk. When we got into my room she began doing a striptease while I sat on the bed.

“She has a stunning figure – and had no underwear on. She really knew what she was doing.”

A week later they met up again for a romantic meal at an Italian restaurant – followed by more romps. He said: “She was wild in bed – a 14 out of ten. She knows positions I had never imagined.”

Hubba. Hubba.  But hey Chapman’s ability to go into deep cover was in her genes.  It has been revealed that her father was a KGB officer. A certain VVP perhaps?

After reading several stories about how ordinary these “spies” lives were (okay, maybe Chapman’s wasn’t too vanilla), I can imagine that all their training to capture “American realism” was to watch Hollywood movies.  The LA Times suggested as much with: “If their cover jobs were ordinary, their secret lives had a humdrum side that sometimes seems more like Woody Allen than John LeCarre.”

Or check out the itemized expense report from Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley to the “Moscow Center”:

Got from Ctr. 64500 dollars, income 13940, interest 76. Expenses: rent 8500, utilities 142, tel. 160, car lease 2180, insurance 432, gas 820, education 3600, payments in Fr. 1000, medical 139, lawyers fees 700, meals and gifts 1230, mailboxes, computer supplies 460, business (cover) 4900, trip to meeting 1125.

If you asked me, it sounds like Heathfield and Foley got themselves sucked into American middle class suburban hell.

Now that they’ve been busted, the spies can now join the pantheon of other “dark forces” who’ve managed to burrow into American suburban life.  Middle class whitey is already wrecked with anxiety over the death of the American dream, the collapse of suburban schooling, sexual predators, illegal immigrants, serial killers, and terrorists.  Now they have to worry about spies too?  And ones that look, act, and consume like them!  I sense someone reaching for their Xanax.

Just because infiltrating into American life may be easy, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t dangerous.  Not dangerous for those unsuspecting suburbanites, but for the infiltrators themselves.  Barbecues and Beemers are tempting and the ‘burbs can be seductive.  “Americanization” is luring to many despite, or perhaps, because of its vapidness.  This is probably why the “Moscow Center” grew suspicious when the Murphy’s wanted to buy a house in Montclair, New Jersey.  The Murphy’s wrote to the Center after being rebuffed:

In order to preserve positive working relationship, we would not further contest your desire to own this house.  We are under an impression that C. views our ownership of the house as a deviation from the original purpose of our mission here.  We’d like to assure you that we do remember what it is.  From our perspective, purchase of the house was solely a natural progression of our prolonged stay here.  It was a convenient way to solve the housing issue, plus to ‘do as the Romans do’ in a society that values home ownership.

According to the LA Times, the Murphys had already embraced middle class entitlement.  One one them later “whined” that their handlers in Moscow “don’t understand what we go through over here.” They won’t let me own a house just like my neighbors! Whaaa!

The lesson in all this is that whitey needs to be more vigilant.  Apparently living in Obama Nation has caused them to slip. Tsk. Tsk. Wake up white people! We not just taking about your children’s purity anymore.  It’s not just the perverts and brown people you need to look out for.  The ones that look, act and do as you do are the most dangerous.  We’re talking about the protecting America from the evil Russians.  Remember Communism?  The Cold War?  Reds in the State Department?  Do you really want to be responsible for the Russianization of America?  I didn’t think so.  To borrow an often quoted line from the great philosopher Donald Rumsfield:

“There are known knowns.  There are things we know that we know.  There are known unknowns.  That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are unknown unknowns.  There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”

It is the “unknown unknowns” that we need to watch out for.  For they could be living unbeknownnst right next door to you.

Since everyone is afflicted with spymania at the moment, I wanted to make sure this little tidbit of news didn’t go unnoticed.

Well, as I assumed the copies of Putin. The Results. 10 Years seized by St. Petersburg police will be returned.  Reports Ekho Moskvy:

Executive Director of United Civil Front Olga Kurnosova reported to Interfax, a representative of the police have contacted her and said that all the copies would be returned today.

They found no extremism in them whatsoever.

Nah, really?  I could have told them that without even reading the damn thing.  So basically this whole scandal has boiled down to some zealous police minion giving Nemstov and Milov two week’s worth of free advertising.  Good job boys.

Score: Team Solidarity 3 : Putin 0

Will the real Ramzan Kadyrov please stand up?  Or at least provide an official passport?  As some may already know, the great pacifier of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov has his own blog.  Or is this his blog, “No, I’m Kadyrov“?

Whichever one is the real Ramzan, his move to share his thoughts inevitably signifies that blogging, and those by politicians and tyrants in particular, has indeed jumped the shark.  Who’s next Kim Jong-il?  (You know if the Dear Leader had a blog you would read it.  I know I would.)

And what did Mr. Kadyrov have to say in his first post?

Here we will meet with you on my blog. There are a great number of blogs that claim to be me. Rest assured, not a single one of them, with exception of the official site of the President of the Chechen Republic, are associated with me. I would really like for you and I to become friends, talk often, and share opinions about current events.  I am a sociable, extremely candid man.  I hope you share these qualities.  I wish you all the best!  Your Ramzan.

Not the most lyrical of texts.  In fact, it sounds like ol’Ramzan is looking for a date.  Especially if you consider the picture occupying the passage.  He looks all suave in his track suit.  Or check out the one for his avatar where he’s smiling seductively as he rests his chin on his wrist. Sexy.

If you think being Ramzan is hard, try being Ramzan the blogger.  Already three days old, and the blog is not without controversy.  First, there were the reports that the blog’s comments section was closed, casting doubt as to whether Kadyrov was the “sociable, extremely candid” guy he claimed. But these turned out to be false.  But be careful, Ramzan is making a list of commentors’ IP addresses.

Then just when Kadyrov thought he had a clear path to becoming a star of the blogsphere, his second post, “My city, Grozny” was accused of plagiarism,  According to the Moscow News,

But that hasn’t stopped the virtual sniggers as his second post, headlined “My city, Grozny”, flickered briefly into life then faded into the void amid allegations of plagiarism.

Kadyrov described getting into his car after the noon prayers and taking a short road trip around Grozny, praising the hard-working residents who are making his city the most beautiful in the region.

All good, touching stuff – but rather familiar to followers of Adam Delimkhanov’s blog, where the state Duma deputy describes an early-afternoon motor jaunt around Moscow and talking about the hard-working Chechen immigrants who are making his city the most beautiful in the region.

Kadyrov’s own site no longer carries his adapted text, though Yandex still carries a cached copy of the text, which can be compared with Delimkhanov’s efforts.

No need to hunt through Yandex.  Thanks to my trusty Feeddemon, I have a copy of the post from Kadyrov’s RSS feed.  Ramzan’s text (plagarized passages in bold):

В последнее время много пишут о Грозном. Авторы подчеркивают, что он стал одним из красивых городов. Три года назад мы заявили, что возродим город. И назвали сроки. Многие не верили. Думали, что устанем, надеялись, что нам надоест работать днем и ночью. Народ Чеченской Республики доказал, что любит свой край, свою столицу. Сегодня после полуденной молитвы я за рулем «Приоры» проехал по улицам Сунженская, Тбилисская, Назарбаева, Гурина, Садовой. Здесь трудятся тысячи жителей Чечни. За последние шесть дней Грозный, благодаря их труду, просто преобразился. И я со всей ответственностью утверждаю, что этот город будет не одним из красивых в регионе, а самым красивым, уютным и безопасным.

Recently, many people have written about Grozny.  The authors emphasize how it became one of the most beautiful cities.  Three years ago we declared that we will revitalize the city.  And we designated a date.  Many didn’t believe us.  They thought that we would tire, hoping that we wouldn’t bother working day and night.  The people of the Chechen Republic have proved that they love their region and their capital.  Today after prayers I drove down the streets of Sunzhensk, Tbilisi, Nazarbarv, Gurin, and Sadovoi in my Priord.  Here thousands of citizens of Chechnya work.  For the last six days, Grozny  has undergone a sea change thanks to their labor.  And I proclaim with all responsibility that this city will be one of the pleasant in the region and the most beautiful, comfortable, and safe.

Now compare to Delimkhanov’s post, “Moscow, my city”:

Сегодня после полуденной молитвы я за рулем «Калины» проехал по улицам Москвы: Арбату, Новому Арбату, Красной площади, Садовой. Здесь трудятся тысячи жителей Чечни. За последние шесть дней Москва, благодаря их труду, просто преобразилась. И я со всей ответственностью утверждаю, что этот город будет не одним из красивых в регионе, а самым красивым, уютным и безопасным.

Today after prayers I drove down the streets of Moscow Arbat, New Arbat, Red Square, and Sadovoi in my Kalin.  Here thousands of citizens of Chechnya work.  For the last six days, Moscow,  has undergone a sea change thanks to their labor.  And I proclaim with all responsibility that this city will be one of the pleasant in the region and the most beautiful, comfortable, and safe.

Oh, and let us not forget that, as the Moscow News also notes, Kadyrov doesn’t own a car.

The car story aroused further suspicion among regular followers of Kadyrov. The Chechen president officially has no vehicle, and didn’t declare ownership of one among his accounts, gzt.ru reported.

Nice work Ramzan, or, I should say the people who write his blog for him.

Solidarity may be band of “scrubby little opposition organizations [that] have no future,” but if things keep going the way their going, Boris Nemtsov will be wining and dining on American think tank honorariums, hobnobbing with US politicos, and testifying in front of Congress for years to come.  Wait, haven’t they done a bit of this already?

Well, let’s just say that Nemtsov’s future is looking a bit brighter thanks to his efforts to paint himself as a repressed dissident.  On Tuesday, Nemtsov reported that the cops seized another 100,000 copies of Putin. The Result. Ten Years. in Smolensk.  I’ve already noted how the cops seized 100,000 copies of the Nemtsov and Milov report last week in St. Petersburg.  The act was clearly a way to prevent activists from distributing the screed to potential investors at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.  A few activists from United Civil Front did worm their way into the forum, but were promptly arrested.

In inquiring about the report, the Smolensk authorities explained that they were just doing their St. Petersburg colleagues a solid, but denied taking any copies.  “After the detention of copies in St. Petersburg, our Petersburg colleagues asked for us to check whether the publisher’s seal was from Smolensk though the report’s publisher is from Moscow.  We asked the head of the printing press [about this],” said Nikolai Turbovets, First Lieutenant of the Smolensk police.  But apparently, unlike their Petersburg counterparts, the Smolensk authorities just did an inquiry.  “No copies were confiscated and no one was arrested,” an employee of the Smolensk press told Kommersant.  However, the source thinks that this was only the beginning.  “I think that the copies will be seized after the hoopla dies down.  We will be connected with the publisher in the next few days.”  The unnamed employee went on to add: “There is a general feeling that now without these copies Boris Nemtsov will receive some excellent PR.”

Given this, it is no surprise that Nemtsov has exaggerated with how things went down.  Nemtsov insists that the copies were indeed taken and not returned, while Olga Shorina, Solidarity’s press secretary, says that the copies are at the Smolensk printing press’ offices but they have been “sealed” by the cops thereby preventing their distribution.

Confiscated or not confiscated.  Sealed or unsealed.  The fact is that the authorities are playing right into Nemtsov’s hands by giving him far more PR than his little “report” deserves.  And he’s lapping it all up as people bum-rush him for his autograph.  Another Russian oppositionist with the rock star looks without the rock star talent.  Oh well, it’s not like talent matters anyway.

The thing I can never wrap my head around is why the police care about people like Nemtsov.  Are they really that paranoid?  Do they think that they are scoring brownie points with their superiors?  Or are they just flat out stupid?  Now granted, there is no contradiction between any of these.  If anything is to be learned is that paranoia, sycophancy, and stupidity go hand in hand.

True, after a few weeks or so all of this will die down even if the cops declare Nemstov’s “report” to be extremist.  Just how soon, though, will depend on Nemtsov himself.  Being the slick willy that he is, I’m sure he’ll have no problem finding the gumption to parlay this into at least a few American taxpayer funded first class transatlantic flights, black tie dinners, photo-ops, and speeches detailing the gruesomeness of the Putin regime.  If the FSB really puts the screws to him, maybe he can even get a movie option or two so he could tell his “story” in celluloid fashion.  George Clooney as Nemtsov?  I could see it.  And if all goes really well, Borya will be able to dethrone Khodorkovsky as the reincarnation of Sakharov.  We all know how Americans like “freedom fighters.”  After all, the Russian authorities have provided him a trough full of greasy, scandal laden vittles.  All Nemtsov has to do is bury his snout in it and start slurping.

With all this said, I can’t help wondering if the real loser in all this is Nemtsov’s co-author, Vladimir Milov.  He basically shot himself in the foot by announcing his departure from Solidarity a day after the cops seized his report.  I mean, didn’t Russian Dissident School teach him that you don’t take a principled stand on anything unless it boosts your public profile?  Sure Solidarity may be filled with egomaniacs, but said egomaniacs command the flashbulbs of Western correspondents.  Now poor Milov doesn’t have a pot to piss in, let alone a platform from which to piss in it.