July 9, 2009 — Contents

FRIDAY JULY 9 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  The World Hates Vladimir Putin

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Russia Today, Seething with Anti-Americanism

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Economics for Russians

(4)  Nemtsov in the Wall Street Journal!

(5)  Russia Teems with Anti-Americanism

(6)  The Seeds of Revolution still Live in Russia

NOTE:  Kim Zigfeld’s latest installment of her Russia column on the American Thinker blog reviews the neo-Soviet crackdown on the media and the assertive thrilling attack on the Kremlin recently launched by Novaya Gazeta.    Kim also has a column running on Pajamas Media (designated lead story, congrats KZ!) which has her take on Obama’s visit to Moscow, namely that it was a total mess that disappointed in a major way. We couldn’t agree more; we got our “hopes” up and O dashed them big time.  It was better than Bush, but that’s not saying much at all.  As always, required reading. We’ll have our own take on the proceedings in a Monday editorial.

EDITORIAL: The World Hates Vladimir Putin

EDITORIAL

The World Hates Vladimir Putin

Sometimes one picture truly is worth a thousand words. Or in Vladimir Putin’s case, a thousand screams.

The chart at left shows the results of a June poll of 20 nations by World Public Opinion ranking the confidence they have in various world leaders.  It shows that other countries have nearly twice as much confidence in American president Barack Obama compared to Russian “prime minister” Vladimir Putin, whose negative rating for lack of confience is even higher than that of Iranian lunatic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Russians, of course, are totally unware of this fact, out of touch with the world, and for that reason hold antipathy for Obama while the rest of the planet adores him.

EDITORIAL: Russia Today’s Gerald Celente, seething with Anti-Americanism

EDITORIAL

Russia Today, seething with Anti-Americanism

 

Dave Essel reports:  I don’t know what drove me to visit Russia Today’s website but I was struck by the level of transparency that must be the rule on the site, which runs under the banner shown above. I thought LR existed to find and expose Russian lies, hypocrisy, and mental and moral confusion but here is their main propaganda site openly confessing to these traits! We’d better start looking for another job…. [BTW, the site looked so stupid and boring that I could not bear to go any further and simply contented myself with taking the screenshot above]

Remember that wacky Russian “professor” Igor Panarin, who claimed that the United States would implode and break apart just like the USSR, within the next year or so? 

To us he may seem wacky (or less diplomatically, insane), but in Russia, he represents mainstream “thought.” In fact, he is a representatative of the Russian state itself.  And Russia Today, the Kremlin’s state-sponsored propaganda network, is actively propounding this view by any means possible, including repeatedly publishing the crazed rantings of one Gerald Celente, who it refers to as an “American economist.” 

EDITORIAL: Economics for Russians

EDITORIAL

Economics for Russians

Based on the total incompetence in the field of economics that we see routinely displayed by Russians, we often think that perhaps they should develop a whole new genre of how-to books with titles that cater to Russians who are not yet sophisticated enough to be able to access a publication like  “Stock Market for Dummies.”   There could be ”Inflation for Russians” and “Unemployment for Russians.”  Lots of pictures and such, no big words.

As a way of perhaps jump-starting this process, we offer our little primer on the latter two subjects.

Nemtsov in the Wall Street Journal!

Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s apologists in the West like to suggest that, for all the shortcomings of his authoritarian regime, there is no viable alternative. Such a position is false and dangerous.

Those who accept the concentration of power and corruption under Mr. Putin are condemning Russia to backwardness, lawlessness, social and economic instability and, potentially, territorial disintegration. They are also condemning the world to continued unpredictable actions by the Kremlin’s unaccountable leaders.

This is not an outcome President Barack Obama or his advisers, who are in Moscow this week to “reset” relations between the U.S. and Russia, should want.

Russia teems with Anti-American Venom

Megan Stack, writing in the Los Angeles Times and reporting from Moscow, documents Russia’s frenzied, pathological hatred of America and its values just in time for Barack Obama’s meeting with Putin, a timely reminder for the new president of the nature of the evil he faces:

When President Obama visits the Kremlin, he will face the task of trying to reset relations with a government that has built its power base and defined itself by its anti-American, neo-Cold War stance.

It’s an opportune moment for the United States to warm up a frosty relationship. Moscow could help on some of Washington’s most intransigent foreign policy troubles, including Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea. But in Russia, there is scant evidence of a desire for a fresh start.

The Seeds of Revolution are Still Alive in Russia’s Black Earth

The New York Times reports:

A year after Dmitri A. Medvedev succeeded Vladimir V. Putin as president, most liberal Russians have cast aside hopes of a real political thaw from above.

But as activists recall the watershed political event of 20 years ago — the remarkable gathering of the Congress of People’s Deputies, the first democratically elected body in the Soviet Union — there are signs of a growing demand for civic discourse. Meanwhile cultural life, so often a bellwether in Russia, carries faint but unmistakable echoes of the opening under perestroika, the restructuring of Soviet society that Mikhail S. Gorbachev introduced in the 80s.

July 7, 2009 — Contents

WEDNESDAY JULY 9 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Reading Vladimir Putin’s Mind

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Russia Through the Looking Glass

(3)  Another Original LR Translation:  Lonely Russia

(4)  Aron on the Putin Implosion

(5)  Russia is being Rejected Across Post-Soviet Space

(6)  Wimbledon Wrapup: More Russian Humiliation

NOTE:  In a thrilling development we’ve already reported, Barack Obama launched an indirect attack on Putin’s authority by giving an interview to firebrand opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta which was published on the first day of his talks with the Kremlin this week, and announcing he will meet with Boris Nemtsov and Garry Kasparov. At the same time, he’s launched a direct assault on Putin’s authority, publicly saying he’s obsolete and an anachronism and indicating he will circumvent Putin with appeals to Medvedev and the people of Russia.  Bravo, Mr. President. Now we want to see you carry this diplomacy through into actual policy.

NOTE:  Today we offer the work of two careful Russia scholars, Aron and Shevtsova, the latter translated by Dave Essel from the Russian press, exposing the failure of Putin’s domestic and foreign policy.  These come as a perfect bulwark for the barrage of editorials we launched at Putin in our last issue.

EDITORIAL: Reading Vladimir Putin’s “Mind”

EDITORIAL

Reading Vladimir Putin’s “Mind”

It’s quite beautiful, really, if you think about it.

There’s this guy, this American, Pavel Klebnikov. He’s writing all these nasty stories about corruption in my Kremlin, and so forth.  You tell them to stop, but they won’t listen of course, these Americans. They think they’re invulnerable.

So, of course, I have to kill him, and I do.  And you might think that would be risky for me, but surprisingly it’s just the opposite.  Because here’s what I do.

EDITORIAL: Russia, Through the Looking Glass

EDITORIAL

Russia, Through the Looking Glass

Something very strange, something that ought to make the Kremlin’s blood run cold (well, colder) has been happening recently in Russia. The price of oil has been rising, but the stock market has been falling. That’s not supposed to happen.

Another Original LR Translation: Lonely Russia

Not Impressed by Power: How Russia Was Humiliated

Lilia Shevtsova, Senior Associate, Carnegie Moscow Center

Novaya Gazeta

Translated from the Russian by Dave Essel

Lilia Shevtsova

The following is an extract, published in Novaya Gazeta, from Shevtsova’s new book – “Lonely Power: Why Russia Didn’t Become the West and Why She Has Difficulties With It”  – about the the whys and wherefores of Russia’s foreign policies today.

Russia’s élite has managed to do the impossible – it has actually turned the chip on its collective shoulder into a survival plan and convinced society at large that its fears are their fears, giving birth to a new anti-Western consensus that supports the monopoly of power. Instead of national unity in the name of development, we have substituted status quo maintenance by toeing to the line “Who Are We Friends Against?” Strangely, a number of clever and, at first sight, liberally inclined people have come over to this cause and become defenders of the system.

What is the West guilty of in relation to Russia? That it, assert these defenders, humiliated Russia in the 1990s, forcing the country to make unilateral concessions and now a) does not want to accept it as “power centre” and b) wants to re-write the rules of the game that came into force after the collapse of the USSR. And that is why, they say, relations have taken a sudden turn for the worse.

Aron on the Putin Implosion

AEI scholar Leon Aron, writing on Foreign Policy’s website (and citing the Nemtsov White Paper which this blog translated into English):

Leon Aron

Early last year, Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov published a report titled “Putin. Itogi,” or “Putin. The Results.” It was a well-documented, comprehensive, and absolutely damning critique of the corruption, authoritarianism, and general dysfunction of what they called rezhim Putina, or “Putin’s regime.” Most revealing was their economic argument: After eight years of Vladimir Putin’s centralizing of the government and the economy, as well as the bureaucratic incompetence and cronyism his policies fostered, Russia had squandered the unique chance at modernization offered by the flush years of the early 2000s. Their conclusion: “The situation could be changed. But the current Russian authorities are neither responsible nor professional nor honest and, as such, cannot initiate change. The situation in Russia will change only when the Russians take the fate of their country in their own hands.”

Russia is being Rejected across Post-soviet Space

The  New York Times documents the relentless foreign policy failure of the Putin regime:

This was supposed to be Russia’s round in the battle over its backyard. All year, despite its own economic spasms, Moscow has earmarked great chunks of cash for its impoverished post-Soviet neighbors, seeking to lock in their loyalty over the long term and curtail Western influence in the region.

But the neighbors seem to have other ideas. Belarus — which was promised $2 billion in Russian aid — is in open rebellion against the Kremlin, flaunting its preference for Europe while also collecting money from the International Monetary Fund. Uzbekistan joined Belarus in refusing to sign an agreement on the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces, an idea Moscow sees as an eventual counterweight to NATO.

Wimbledon Wrapup: Yet Another Russian Bloodbath

Once again, Russian women humiliated themselves at a grand-slam tennis tournament.  Russia’s so-called “number one” player was by far the worst offender, so unspeakably wretched that she made the whole national tennis program look entirely fraudulent – the second time she’d done so in as many months.

Russian #1 Dinara Safina has now appeared in the finals of two grand slam events this year and the semifinals of the third, and embarrassed herself all three times. She won three of 15 games played at the Australian Open final, six of 18 games played at the French Open final, and an utterly pathetic one of 13 games played at the Wimbledon semifinal.  46 total games played against three different opponents, and so-called “world #1″ Safina was only able to win ten of them, less than a quarter of the total.  And six of those ten games came from a woeful, awful fellow Russian.  In 28 games against non-Russians, Safina won only four, an utterly humiliating one-seventh share.

The performance of the other Russians at Wimbledon, though, was hardly much better.

SPECIAL EXTRA: Obama Speaks to Novaya Gazeta

“I agree with President Medvedev when he said that ‘freedom is better than the absence of freedom’. I see no reason why strengthening democracy, human rights and the rule of law cannot be included as part of our ‘reset’ in relations. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

– U.S. President Barack Obama to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta in an interview (Russian version) the paper has published just as he opens talks with the Kremlin

Other Russia is reporting that Obama intends to meet with opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Garry Kasparov (who is crowing with in-your-face jubiliation).  The combination of the interview and the meeting make one very bitter pill for Vladimir Putin to swallow.  For the first time since we started blogging about Russia, we are excited about the country’s future in a positive way. Go, Obama, go!

June 6, 2009 — Contents

MONDAY JUNE 6 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Is Putin the Worst Ever?

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Putin the Puritan

(3)  Essel on Threadbare Putin

(4)  EDITORIAL:  Putin’s Murderous Rampage

(5)  EDITORIAL:  Putin’s Corrupt, Incompetent Minions

(6)  EDITORIAL:  Obama vs. Putin, Round 1

NOTE:  This week Barack Obama travels to Moscow for his first meeting with Vladimir Putin.  With this 100% original special issue, we offer him our bon voyage.  We document chapter and verse the evil that is Putin, and we indicate our hope, based on his recent direct assault on Putin, that Obama will restore American moral leadership where neo-Soviet Russia is concerned, and though we endorsed John McCain in the last election we’ll be only too thrilled to become Obama’s biggest fans if he does so.  We will not be publishing a Sunday issue to give this special its due.

EDITORIAL: Is Putin the Worst Russian Leader Ever?

EDITORIAL

Is Putin the Worst Russian Leader Ever?

We think so, and today we offer a wealth of evidence to support our position in form of a special issue devoted to answering this question.  Barack Obama will soon be winging his way to Russia and will sit down with Putin to discuss all manner of things.  Hopefully, the new American president has some vague clue about how how Putin is sticking it to the people of his country, and the world, in a fully neo-Soviet manner.  Just a glance through today’s content would give him a major eye-opener. 

Let’s begin with economics, which as Putin’s second term as “president” came to a conclusion was allegedly his long suit.   Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov warned long ago that in fact Putin was nothing but yet another Potemkin village, doomed to collapse as surely as the USSR did.  But the pro-Kremlin propaganda kept on rolling forth. 

But the numbers are catching up with Mr. Putin, catching up fast.  Just two months ago, the World Bank predicted Russia would have a 4% economic contraction this year.  Now, it has doubled that estimate, in a report suggesting the contraction will be 8%, and the Russian Finance Ministry itself believes the WB is still being conservative.  It’s quite possible that Putin’s Russia will end the year with a double-digit recession.

It would, in that event, match Russia’s projected unemployment and inflation rates for 2009, which the WB estimates will both top out at a horrifying 13%.  And it would also match Russia’s projected loan default rate, which the WB believes will stand at 10% by year’s end. 

EDITORIAL: Putin the Puritan

EDITORIAL

Putin the Puritan

Perhaps for the first time since Vladimir Putin took power, the people of Russia last week got a crystal clear image of what their lives would be like a decade from now if Putin is allowed to become “president for life” like Sadaam Hussein of Iraq.  It is not a pretty picture.

At one stroke, just as if he were Stalin, Putin shut down every formerly legal gambling casino in the country and threw hundreds of thousands of Russian workers onto the unemployment lines.  Just as many contended Russia could “never go back” to a Soviet style of living, many believed Putin would never carry through on his Puritan threat to close the casinos, at least not while unemployment was in double digits and the economy was foundering badly. 

But he has done it.  And that’s not all he has done.

Essel on Threadbare Putin

Has Pooty Lost the Thread? 

by Dave Essel

June is a bit early for the silly season, at least for Brits, where schools and  Parliament take their summer break a bit later. Schools break up earlier in Russia and whether the Duma takes a summer break or not makes not a jot of difference.

So it’s always time for the silly season in Russia and our Pooty got it off to a good start by a run of acts of wanton silliness that were jumped on by commentators, to the extent that the Eurasia Daily Monitor remarked in passing in an article about Gazprom “some commentators started to worry about Putin’s connection with reality.”

This seemed worth a second glance and I took a wander around this and related articles. It would appear that Pooty has indeed being buzzing busily around all sorts of pies and making one commentator after another reel at his revelatory inanities.

EDITORIAL: The Murderous Rampage of Vladimir Putin

EDITORIAL

The Murderous Rampage of Vladimir Putin

Vyacheslav Yaroshenko.

Rim Shaigalimov.

Do you know these names?  Vladimir Putin hopes you don’t or if you do you’ll soon forget.  You see, he killed both of them.

EDITORIAL: Behind Putin, Incompetence and Corruption

EDITORIAL

Behind Putin, Incompetence and Corruption

A stunning fact recently revealed by scholar Paul Goble is that no Russian ambassador earns more than $36,000 per year, less than the average yearly salary in the United States.  And scholar Andrei Illarionov shows us that the men pulling the strings for these “diplomats,” (who in fact have no real freedom of action and act like puppets of the Kremlin) are nothing but a barbaric hoard of KGB thugs.

EDITORIAL: Obama vs. Putin, Round 1

EDITORIAL

Obama vs. Putin, Round 1

We were heartened when U.S. President Barack Obama appeared to signal, in an interview with the Associated Press just before leaving for Moscow, an intention to seek to divide the Kremlin and thereby conquer it. If Obama follows through on this strategy, it will be a master stroke.

July 3, 2009 — Contents

FRIDAY JULY 3 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Our Shortest Editorial Ever!

(2)  Welcome to Russia!  When will you be leaving?

(3)  Desperate Russia begins Drafting Invalids

(4)  Russia still just Doesn’t get it: The problem is Russians

(5)  OPEN THREAD

EDITORIAL: A New Low in Obscene Russian Barbarism

EDITORIAL

A New Low in Obscene Russian Barbarism

This is going to be our shortest editorial ever, just one sentence with no need for further comment from us, yet perhaps it is our most horrifying ever:  59% of Russians surveyed have no idea what happened in Pikalyovo, and only 16% of them are fully familiar with the cutting of a major national transportation artery by workers unpaid and starving, causing “prime minister” Putin to rush to the scene on an emergency basis.

NOTE: In our Monday issue, we’ll have four editorials and an original essay by Dave Essel focussing on Vladimir Putin, the man, the failure, the international paraiah.  The issue will go live on the web on Friday, we will not publish on Sunday but will allow the Monday issue to run two cycles. It’s that important. Don’t miss it.

Welcome to Russia!

The foreigner-in-Russia blogging at News of the Eastern reports on a typical encounter with Russian “law enforcement” authorities.  (NOTE:  An average Russian is paid less than 90 rubles for each hour of work.  Thus, the “little bit of money” asked for by the police as a bribe in this story amounts to more than three hours of labor, nearly half a day’s pay, for an average Russian and as such is roughly equivalent to a bribe of $60 being demanded from an average American. Imagine being asked that for, say, walking on grass with a sign to the contrary.)

Yesterday I had my first run-in with the Russian police. Unlike many of my other foreign friends, I am not routinely stopped and hassled for my documents so this was my first direct experience of the renowned MVD, although of course I’d heard thousands of stories about how corrupt the Russian police are. This time around, however, I was definitely in the wrong, although I’m not entirely sure to what extent the police were in the right either.