July 2, 2010 — Contents

FRIDAY JULY 2 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Obama  in Freefall

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Another Black Eye for Russia

(3)  The Putin Paradox:  Less Evil is More

(4)  Neo-Soviet Russia and her Western Henchmen

(5)  Russia’s Secret Life

NOTE:  Oleg Kozlovsky continues taking the West by storm, with a recent trip to Washington DC including visits with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Helsinki Commission, Foreign Affairs magazine and the State Department.

NOTE:  The friends of Sergei Magnitsky offer a new video about the brutality surrounding his barbaric murder.

EDITORIAL: Obama in Freefall

The Obama administration in freefall

EDITORIAL

Obama in Freefall

The irony of a massive Russian spy ring being arrested in the United States just days after U.S. President Barack Obama finished munching cheeseburgers and touting his “reset” relations with his puppet Russian counterpart  Dima Medvedev could not possibly have been lost on anyone.

The chart above shows the job approval rating of Obama since he took office, courtesy of Real Clear Politics.  While Obama’s disapproval rating (in red) has soared his approval (in black) has plummeted so that now the two figures are for all intents and purposes identical, and well less than 50% of the population approves of Obama’s policies.  He has been denounced even by the likes of ultra left-wing columnist Frank Rich as dangerously close to collapse.

All this time, Obama has gotten closer and closer to Russia, culminating last week in his absurd “burger summit” with Russian “president” Dima Medvedev.

EDITORIAL: Another Black Eye for Russia

EDITORIAL

Another Black Eye for Russia

Russia got another black eye on the international stage last week when British Petroleum appointed Bob Dudley to oversee the cleanup of its infamous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  He’s the same fellow who got kicked out of Russia for daring to stand up to the Kremlin in 2008. And now the international press is placing that event before the eyes of a slack-jawed world.  What goes around, comes around, you see Mr. Putin.

Talking Points Memo reports:

The Putin Paradox: Less evil is More

Paul Goble reports:

The regime in Russia is undergoing a transformation, Grani commentator Dmitry Shusharin says, but not, as many expect, toward dissolution or collapse. Rather, it is seeking to “isolate” itself from society, a development that is likely to make the achievement of any positive changes there more rather than less difficult. Indeed, Shusharin suggests, Russia would be far closer to a breakthrough to a better future if the powers that be were more openly oppressive, whereas Moscow’s current approach can be countered most successfully only if the opposition is willing to engage in acts of civil disobedience.

Neo-Soviet Russia and her Western Henchmen

Paul Goble reports:

Western specialists being enlisted in the Kremlin’s effort to legitimate Russia’s “special path to democracy,” a role they are prepared to play not only because of “business interests and weakness before big money but also because of a profound crisis of [their] worldview,” according to Grani.ru commentator Irina Pavlova. And because of their willingness to do so, she writes, the world is watching a situation like that of 30 years ago “when in the army of Western Sovietologists were only a few who spoke about the possible collapse of the Soviet Union and almost no one who was prepared to put the question as Andrey Amalrik did in his essay ‘Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984?’”

Today, she notes, “the future participants of the world political forum” scheduled to take place in Yaroslavl in September, like the one that took place a year ago, are meeting in Berlin to discuss what will be discussed. Among those attending, Pavlova says, are Immanuel Wallerstein and Fareed Zakaria.

Russia’s Secret Life

The Washington Post reports:

Soviet Russia’s missiles and soldiers snaking through Red Square made chilling images, but one Russian-American filmmaker is casting a new light on this time to show there was life beneath the ice.

Semyon Pinkhasov, an emigre to the United States at the height of the cold war has made documentary films about prominent Soviet-era artisan and sport figures, who not only survived but thrived during communism’s repressive rule.

“When the temperatures sink and snow is on the ground there is still life under the ice. It is the same for society under a dictatorship,” said Pinkhasov.