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.