BlackHat's Journal: But then they lie and then they dare to be

Much like the Potemkin villages, Catherine the great played with a toy Legislative Commission. It looked and sounded like a democracy, or at least some kind of representation, but in the end served to expose more of what our world would become today. Democracy is a strange egg. In that it may never be hatched or layed, all the while, it is expected to keep up with the swans. Legs are in the next budget they assure us.

Quote:
Her[Catherine the Great's] decision to call the Legislative Commission, however, looks very like an attempt to broaden the basis of her power. As a French diplomat said: 'This princess realizes only too well her utter dependence upon the grandees. . . . The opinion obtains that in order to shake off the yoke the Empress has assembled the Estates so that she may sound out public opinion.' The official reason for the Commission was the re-codification of Russian law, which had remained unreformed since the Code of 1649, an epoch when the insights of the Age of Reason were not yet available to legislators.

From what many of the delegates said, reform was long overdue in the administration of both the civil and criminal law, which suffered from the vices of long-drawn-out trails, inadequate police, and the necessity of bribing officials at all levels. 'The dvoriane and people of every rank of Pskov county', went the Instruction from that country in the Province of Novgorod, 'suffer extreme ravages from brigands, thieves, robbers and other kinds of criminal, which stops very many of the dvorianstvo from living on their estates, for the protection of their lives from wicked torments.' Catherine was confident (at least, in her public utterances) that such problems could be solved. 'God forbid', she said in her Instructions , 'that after the completion of the legislation any other nation on earth shall enjoy greater justice and, therefore, greater well-being.'

As for the Commission, there were plenty of precedents for assemblies of this kind, though not for Catherine's Instructions for it. She devoted two years hard reading and writing to it -- a longer period than the Commission's meetings, which ran from July, 1767 to December, 1768. Its composition was also new. After gerrymandering with at least seven different electoral schemes, Catherine and her ministers eventually produced one which provided for representatives of the various departments of the central government, and of the following social groups: the nobility, the inhabitants of the towns, several different kinds of semi-free peasants, the Cossacks, and the native tribesmen. The chief groups excluded were the clergy (represented by one member of the Synod), about three-quarters of the peasants, and all the private serfs. Another novelty was that, unlike all previous assemblies, which had been dominated or monopolised by the nobility, the Commission contained 207 urban representatives, and only 160 representatives from the nobility. This ratio was fully in accord with Catherine's oft-expressed desire to foster the growth of a middle class on western lines; though it does not indicate the predominance of the conquering bourgeoisie, as some historians have thought. [Still!!!] For the proceedings of the Commission were dominated by the nobility; who were, in fact, numerically superior (228 in all) since the governments, some towns, peasant and tribal groups chose nobles to represent them.

Catherine brought the deliberations of this non-legislating law-making body to a fairly swift end in 1768, officially because of the Turkish war, but really, in all probability, for other reasons. The dvoriane had revealed themselves to be lacking in the knowledge, ability, and experience required to draft regulations for the government of a vast empire. The quality of the discussions, moreover, had not been a good advertisement in western Europe for Russia's cultural level. 'To give Your Lordship a right idea of this choice collection of men, and their operations,' wrote the British diplomat, Henry Shirley to Lord Weymouth, 'permit me to suppose a certain number of the most ignorant of our petty merchants and shopkeepers in Great Britain and Ireland gathered as the several deputies of those nations in America, who either are subjects, or under the protection of His Majesty, and a few gentlemen unacquainted with the general principles, which constitute the basis of good government: this would be perhaps too favourable a copy of the original.'

In addition, the Commission had taken the lid off a number of controversial issues, one airing of which was quite sufficient for a ruler intent upon establishing her own domination. Sharp conflicts were revealed between nobles, anxious to preserve their privileges (especially their monopoly of serf-ownership), and middle-class men desirous of securing exemption from public service and of acquiring the right to purchase serfs for their factories. The nobles wanted to make it next to impossible for upstarts to achieve noble rank by means of the Table of Ranks; the bourgeoisie wanted to make it illegal for nobles or peasants to set up in business. Rumblings of discontent were also heard from delegates from the Baltic provinces, the Ukraine, and other conquered areas, who feared the extinction of their national rights and peculiarities in a general scheme of Russifcation. And a handful of delegates even referred to the advantages to be derived from the emancipation of the serfs. --EN Williams

The in addition there is a/the central point here. So many years before the ages of revolution, the dynamic that would haunt us until this very day, was played out. 'Who hates who and why', in the modern social network, was illustrated in sick detail --well before, and pointedly ignored in some cases by, the Utopian writers of 1780-1880's England, France and America. And this includes upto and including the pre-emptive end often resorted to by the true-power(tm) [insert illustration of "Free Duck Hunt" vouchers]. Parallels can, of course, be drawn in the recent 2000-farce of the USA and, indeed, that of most of post war Italy and Spain. Both of the last two will get a right kicking in the next JE. Until then.

News dismissed on a whim:
Afghan's getting their voter registration to full. The list of candidates is an issue, but the fun starts when you start counting.

Indecent act? ...try 'acts', plural.

Shell shock! Oil giant Shell has for the first time named a Nigerian to head its operations in Nigeria, one of the world's biggest oil exporters. Basil Omiyi, 58, will start work as Shell Nigeria's managing director in September, after joining the company 34 years ago. Hand em' a copy of The Naked Lunch and poke nearest shell exec to the next brimstone minepit.

Score card update: Head in Riyadh is that of US hostage Paul Johnson. So does that make 6 or 7 still rolling about? I'm only asking as I just had my shoes done.

Tubby's getting flack. Lawyers for the former chief of Hollinger International, Conrad Black, have argued in court that the Telegraph newspaper was sold too hastily. The disposal was made, they said, without considering other options for the shareholders. No shit. But not for the reasons they are thinking of.

Found it! The records do not give any new information about Bush's National Guard training during 1972, when he transferred to the Alabama National Guard unit so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of a family friend. The payroll records do not say definitively whether Bush attended training that summer because they are maintained separately from attendance records. And on a friday. Pb+H = Thud!

OYAITJ: Be careful of what you wish for. On the other hand ... *spritz* ..pull her arm again. Mmmm, that's nice.

Texttoon:
Fumetti: Stock photo of Kerry and Edwards, white smiles, hands held, flags and posters, etc. Caption at the bottom: "The ambiguously ambiguous duo."