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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Remember that show "The Real World"? It started off ". . . what happens when people stop being nice and start being real."
This thing stinks. Not all of the readers can smell it yet but a few, who are on top of these things, can.
Personally, I think the best thing to do is come right out and say what you feel. What's troubling me is that I don't think we're of one mind on this issue. That first step is a doosie.
There's not going to be a global shortage of cocaine, prostitutes or things to gamble on in the next 20 years.
But oil, eh, that's a different matter. If you were OC, which would you prefer to control?
Now about the timing -- the United Russia party congress was just held this weekend and this scandal could have already altered the fate of Russian oil, because the faction backed by Putin didn't do nearly as well as expected.
There's no way someone wanting to influence Russian politics could succeed without working from inside this party, because the alternatives to this party are: Libertarians (called liberals in Russia), Communists and ultra-nationalists.
People who don't blame the Jews for all their troubles and don't want Communism or unbridled robber baron capitalism are going to vote United Russia.
It's funny -- Americans want to see Putin as a shadowy authoritarian future.
He just took a public beating at his own party congress. He doesn't looking so threatening or authoritarian in that light.
The way Americans look at Putin has been strongly influenced by the highly selective coverage of the Yukos affair in the American press.
For example, the American press doesn't even mention that Putin belongs to a political party at all.
Why him?
-because of the book about the FSB
-because of his investigations into that journalist's death
-because clearly in exchange for his asylum in the UK, he was helping the UK intelligence services on a regular basis
Why now?
-because he was hot on the journalist's death trail
-most importantly, because he just got UK citizenship in October 2006, so there was no longer any hope whatsoever taht he would extradited to Russia, for which Russia has been asking since he defected.
Why polonium-210?
-whoever shot the journalist did a bad job. the whole thing was all over the world press. No more shootings.
-Russia had already used poisons before -- they tried to poison the Ukranian presidential candidate, and it didn't work.
-as for the way polonium kills someone, perhaps there wasn't much evidence on how long it takes to kill someone, perhaps the fact that he didn't die instantly was unexpected.
-but it is easy conceal, thanks to its short alpha rays
-and you only need a small amount, possibly in a spray
Why not the Mossad?
-Why would the Mossad want to hurt Putin? Because he's helping states like Iran, which poses grave dangers for Israel. But Israel must think past 1-step revenge. If it makes Putin look bad, it will only push Putin further away from his Western allies and into the loving arms of places like Libya, North Korea, Venezueala, Cuba, and Iran, which is definitely not good for Israel.
Who benefits from making Putin look bad and alienating Russia?
-in the long term, no one really. Russia is big and powerful -- alienating it from the Western world won't help any of the complex probelms, like terrorism and weapons proliferation, that we face today.
-Iran benefits. Maybe it was Iran. But i highly doubt it.
You say that Putin prevented Russia's oil industry from being run by organized crime, as if it was a good thing. Your underlying assumption is that Putin's government is somehow better than organized crime. Which i think in the context of Russia is completely wrong.
Putin, like any mafia don, is trying to consolidate his power and eliminate democratic elections. He appoints all the province governors, he has passed laws against creaeting a "negative image" of electino candidates, he has a rubber stamp parliament
Putin, like any mafia don, does not shy away from massive violence. Taking out his opponents, whether direct competitors for power like Khodarkovsky, or people like the journalist or the ex-spy, is par for the course, and necessary to sustain his power consolidation.
Putin is a terrorist. Plain and simple. He ordered the FSB to blow up Russian apartment buildings and then blame it on the Chechens to provoke the second chechen war.
So, i really don't think Putin is any better than organized crime.
I used to visit Moscow a lot. The first time, someone took me to Bulgakov's apartment and then I read Master and Margartia and from then on part of my soul was owned by the city of Moscow. But I stopped going partly because there were too many exploding parked Mercedes for my comfort.
And now the people who made the Mercedes explode are being treated like victims in the American press.
That's the biggest emotion I'm feeling here. I'm not really enamored of Putin. I am disgusted by American journalism.
Whether or not he's innocent, the press is definitely biased. For one thing, they shouldn't be referring to Nevzlin without mentioning the missing Gorins and dead Petukhov and the poor dead lady who owned the tea shop.
And for another, they should do more to explain party politics in Russia. The way it's being covered now makes it sound like Putin is Franco. He's not. United Russia is what you'd get if the moderate Democrats and Republicans quit and formed their own party.
The American press is doing an absolutely sucky job of covering the case. Americans get dumbed down news. The press is allowing Nevzlin to pose as an innocent businessman suffering political repression, when any fool who can google can see this is not true.
John Gotti tried that pose too by the way, but the press saw through it that time.
Why aren't they seeing through it this time? Only the LA Times has even mentioned that Nevzlin is wanted for contract killings at all.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
