Posted on 05/31/2014 4:02:53 AM PDT by elhombrelibre
In the winter of 2012, something surprising happened to Vladimir Putin: He discovered, as he wrote in a government newspaper, that Russia isn't just an ordinary country but a unique "state civilization," bound together by the ethnic Russians who form its "cultural nucleus." This was something new. In his previous 12 years in office, first as Russia's president and then as prime minister, Mr. Putin had generally stayed away from grand pronouncements on culture and ideology.
And Mr. Putin wasn't done with this theme. Elected in March 2012 to a third term as president—in the face of massive antiregime protests, replete with banners and posters scorning him personally—he told the Russian Federal Assembly the following year that it was "absolutely objective and understandable" for the Russian people, with their "great history and culture," to establish their own "independence and identity."
What was this identity? For Mr. Putin, it was apparently easier to say what it was not: It was not, he continued, "so-called tolerance, neutered and barren," in which "ethnic traditions and differences" are eroded and "the equality of good and evil" had to be accepted "without question."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Well, Russia has the distinct honor of having bitch-slapped the so called president of the USA and knows he faces no consequences. That certainly is as exceptional as obama having won a nobel prize.
Not knowing the difference between good and evil is the only way Obama can sit there and distroy our economic system, and now distroy the power system that undergirds it.
He bitch slapped the queer mafia too.
Well, Maybe Barry doesn’t know he was bitch slapped.
He might not have read about it in the paper yet...
because Obama is not in charge over there with Hillary waiting in the wings --
and he has a valid point.
Putin is saying nothing new here, in fact Russian supremacism goes back centuries to the time the Muscovy duchy defeated the Tatars, captured Kazan & ended the period called the “Tatar yoke”.
It has a religious aspect too; the Greek Orthodox church lost the Byzantine empire to the conquering Turks, but the Russian Orthodox church, its offshoot, gained an empire during the reigns of Ivan IV (the Terrible) through Alexander II (Central Asia has been Russian ruled since 1867).
Vladimir Vladimirovich is really feeling his oats now (or is it kasha?) and saying to the world,
“Communism? We don’ need no steenkin’ communism for Russia to be powerful!”
I think Putin’s being Putin. Obama is a fraud and a disaster. I’ve my doubts, though, that Putin would be benign or reasonable if we had a different president. To me, it’s like believing Obama could change the Middle East because he’s Obama. Those people have their own crackpot theories. Likewise, the former KGB man Putin has his own crackpot and self-serving reasons for seeking pan-Russian hegemony, willy-nilly border changes, and his presidency for life. One could argue that a more focused and serious US President could have changed that, but I’ve my doubt that without full cooperation of most of Europe that it would be likely Putin would have been stopped for his crimes so far.
The article notes that pan-Russian chauvinism is not new. However, Putin has renewed it to divert attention from his own failures, which are, seriously, much like Obama’s.
Putin has realized with Ukraine that he nearly bit off more than he could chew, but what failures?
Russia’s energy exports are no longer a monopoly but they are still huge, its sophisticated weapons industry exports all over the world, the Russian Orthodox church is flourishing & the Russian birthrate is trending upwards, he’s teaming up with China against our interests & has the advantage of a weak kneed bumbling Obama in the White House.
How are Putin’s failures like Obama’s? Real question.
Russia as no interest in acquiring Ukraine. Let the West own it. Someone has to pick up the tab for rebuilding a bankrupt country.
You can be sure it won’t be Putin. He is not that stupid.
But...but...for a long time Putin was huffing & puffing that Ukraine was rightfully part of greater Russia, & he was going to economically strangle them into submission.
Now he’s given up trying to incorporate eastern Ukraine with its Russian/pro-Russian majority into the Russian confederation? What gives, is all of Ukraine so bankrupt that it would be that huge a burden on the Motherland?
Putin is also a failure, like Obama, in that he has systematically and relentlessly worked to destroy democracy and the rule of law. Both men seek more power than is necessary or granted to them by their respective constitutions. Like Obama, Putin surrounds himself with cranks, weirdos, mountebanks, and fools like Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Zhirinovsky is the Russian version of Reverend Al Sharpton, playing the racial/nationalist card for personal financial gain. As does Putin, who is probably the richest man in the world. We can consider Putin a greater success than Obama only if we wish either one of them more power and less accountability. In this regard, Obama probably envies Putin. There is no FOX NEWS equivalent in Russia. There is no NATIONAL REVIEW, COMMENTARY, AMERICAN SPECTATOR, etc.
The Orthodox Russian Church "flourishes" at the discretion of Putin and as a prop for his pan-Russian chauvinism. The leadership is essentially bought off or unable to criticize him. For such a devout man as Putin pretends to be, why is it that he's not simply outlawed abortion? And if one wants a Christian Theocracy, then maybe the Church of Putin is as good as it gets, but those who feel Putin has restored Christian worship to Russia might want to consider that it's the worship permitted in one Christian Church that is under Putin's control. There was a time when Americans would have taken umbrage at that type of government control of religion across all faiths. It was at least one reason why many people left Europe, as most of us know. Now, it's allegedly a good deal that Putin runs Russia's churches. Weird. It's not the type of church Christ would want; it's not the type of government church relationship that George Mason and Thomas Jefferson would have wanted. This is the 21st Century; it wouldn't hurt the government of Russia to allow other Christians to worship as they please, to build churches, and to proselytize if they so desired.
Russian can make deals with China, but in the long run they will both be pariah states because neither regime can or will permit modest levels of citizenship and opposition. Their political institutions resemble a time before the enlightenment and are only as strong as the strongman in charge. I'd never envy any of them. They're going to both be unable to address the serious problems they have. China has probably 100 million men with no chance of finding a woman to marry due to its idiotic social engineering; it's contaminated its rivers and air in its mad rush to industrialize.
My disdain for Obama will never lead me to overlook the faults of a foreign dictator, which is really what Putin is since no opposition to Putin is now permitted in Russia. This has put me at odds with some of his fans, the Putinistas, who cannot see that Putin is no more a conservative than Obama is (unless statism pursuing "conservative" ends is what they want). Putin just uses symbolic gestures to the conservative institutions in Russia. In that sense he's merely a fraud, and again like Obama.
Then Putin can pull his troops back, and he can stop menacing Ukraine’s people. He can stop sending armed subversives from Russia and Chechnya to Ukraine to terrorize the Ukrainians. He can leave the Ukrainians in peace and let them sort out the awful economy that the Putin-supported and Putin puppet Victor Yanukovych left the people of Ukraine. Or better yet. Putin can return all that Victor Yanukovych looted from the Ukrainian people. And you can hope that someday Putin returns to the Russian people the money he has looted from them. And maybe you can end your infatuation with Putin.
The (Re)birth of Ivan Ilyin
[T]he reconquest of Crimea has caused a clear change of tone in Moscow, with celebration of old fashioned Russian nationalism coming into fashion. In his speech to the Duma announcing the triumphant annexation of Crimea, when speaking of Russians, Putin specifically used the ethnic term – russkiy – not the more inclusive rossiyskiy, which applies to all citizens of the Russian Federation. This came among incantations to the full Great Russian program, with a Moscow-centric view of Eastern Europe seemingly endorsed by mentions of great Orthodox saints. Unstated yet clearly, this was all of a piece with “Third Rome” ideology, a powerful admixture of Orthodoxy, ethnic mysticism, and Slavophile tendencies that has deep resonance in Russian history.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/376109/rebirth-ivan-ilyin-andrew-stuttaford
http://www.interpretermag.com/what-is-putins-ideology-interpreter-podcast-april-9-2014/
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/putin-corruption-network-revealed/
“Third Rome”
I had forgotten that term! And the difference between `ruskii’ and `rossiskii’. So, Vladimir Vladimirovich is looking past the days of Lenin & Stalin, all the way back to the glory days of the tsars. And so many examples to choose from: Tsar Despot, Tsar Westernizer, Tsar Empire Builder, Tsar Faith Defender, Tsar Liberator, etc. Every one except Tsar Abdicator, yes?
As noted, Russia today has but one established Church. Christian missionaries of other sects are suppressed; it’s not nice to challenge the Third Rome, now is it? If that’s the case, then why are the streets of Moscow teeming with Muslims in search of a church to occupy, ahem, ahem, I mean just to pray in every Friday? Are the Tatars now avenged of the sacking of Kazan?
So, Putin seek to reawaken the Slavophile in Russia’s soul? BTW, tsars didn’t have to address Duma’s, they just acted. I wonder which tsar he would most like to emulate?
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