Just finished listening to this. Discussing the new law that is being rushed through the Russian Parliament and which would limit foreign ownership in mass media enterprises in Russia to 20% (a measure directed at one particular independent newspaper), Pavel Gusev said, that “it is the right of any state to limit foreign ownership in its media”. (But in any event he is only supporting the current measure reluctantly, because he opposes the “motives” of the Government).
The problem with holding a view as schizophrenic as this one, is failure to recognize the apt Lacanian bit of “linguisterie”: there is no Other of the Other. Symbolic order (“The Other”) does not have any transcendental order behind it that would justify it on any higher level. The (symbolic) power of the state lies entirely in its citizens silent agreement to follow a set of rules. If tomorrow this agreement were to be voided so would be the rules, and the state would collapse. Whatever Government leaders may be feeling, in reality they are nothing more than Freud’s father, who did not know that he was dead (in Freud’s dream). Certainly no state has any innate right to do anything at all.
Vita Contemplativa 