Tag Archives: Putin

One for the Putinistas (and Ballet Lovers)

23 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Philosophy, Politics, Russia, United States of America

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Nineteenth-century radicals loathed Russia above all other states because it had a quasi-religious mission to preserve autocracy at home and promote reactionary regimes abroad. To true believers, the “Third Rome” of Christian tsarism defended the divinely ordained old order against the threats of liberalism, socialism, nationalism and modernity.

Vladimir Putin is outflanking the west at every turn | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer – by Nick Cohen – 12/21/2013

After reading Nick Cohen’s relay of Pat Buchanan’s words about Vladimir Putin, it turns out that I am a part of a movement characterized as the “militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite.”

* * *

Ya ha!

I have found my place.

You know my lowest common denominator standards:

— Compassion | Humility | INCLUSION | Integrity —

Buchanan, if he’s now enamored of Putinism, and Putin, who would seem by the show of affection proffered in weapons deliveries and benevolent shadowing, remains committed to Bashar (The Butcher) Assad  may be counted on for the grossest callousness, pride, exclusion, and — no secret where so many secret and nepotist arrangements would seem to be involved — corruption.

The same as (gasp!) Al Qaeda.

OUR problem, me hearties, me droogies, me Facebook best buddies from Riyadh to Islamabad, is that whether having to do with Assad vs. the Islamist Edge or Putin vs. Obama, it would seem similar mentalities wish to occupy the same space or shine in the same lights — not exactly atypical of “malignant narcissists” — while driving everyone else into misery or just plain out of their mirrored spheres!

THEIR problem, Mr. Obama, Mr. Putin, may have to do with escaping their own glorious selves.  Of the two, Obama, being of the Christian compassionate honest humble and generously inclusive democratic and open society west, may lay claim to having done less harm in the short term than his superpower counterweight; Putin, however, would do well to look over the Assad combat doctrine and its effects on once disinterested Syrians who have by the effects of extensive bombing and indiscriminate fire been turned out of their homes or cheated of their lives while the Al Qaeda affiliates’ advance seems to have remained out of range and sight of the same.

Post-Soviet Syria was post-Soviet Putin’s to influence and transform.

Well, some, I suppose, both milk the cow and starve it until it keels over.

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In Putin, the past fights mightily with the future.

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In my own recurring themes, Putin and I might share the appreciation of what I call “19th Century Modern”, an aristocratic and noble notion reinforced by the appearance of affluence and wealth.  Living in the 19th Century with 21st Century appointments and appliances seems to me pretty cool, although I’ve had to stuff my mansion into a cabin (or cottage) based in about 1,000-sq.ft. of garden apartment walk-up, and things are not looking so good for drives in the country and claret before one or another of the ever glowing electronic hearths.

Still, the situation here is 19th Century (Modern), and it’s pretty good but for the worry.

For the narcissist, reparative or malignant (guilty, I confess, of one or the other or a bit of both), there’s much to recommend it and one may bet on the intelligentsia’s buy-in, Georgian brick, ivy, tweed, and elbow patches and all.

So is the fighting about castle and keep?

It could be so, at least symbolically.

It takes a castle, a manor, a very many of them to create and sustain a great language and culture.  If perhaps in his mind, his peacock charm, ambition, dreams at night, and hail fellow well met — and now and then stabbed! — President Putin has had to step back a century, the same may serve to remind of the magic of that era as well.

* * *

It’s almost Christmas.

Winter returns tonight to my home in western Maryland — ice and snow, wool blankets and sweaters, steaming pots of tea (someone else in the family got the samovar) — so I may offer this bit of in-solidarity to my unknown Muscovy doppelganger, reasonably appointed and of good temper: let’s enjoy the show because, sooner or later, for Christianity or fashion designers, for the Jews who work harder for humanity than anyone else, and for humanity served, we’re going to have to do something about Syria and soon, and we don’t want it to be either of the two pariahs busying themselves this evening with the other’s destruction.

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From Saint Petersburg — and the 19th Century.

▶ Tchaikovsky – The Nutcracker – Mariinsky Theatre Gergiev – YouTube – Posted 10/18/2013.

Related: The Mariinsky theatre: Goldfingered Gergiev | The Economist – 5/11/2013.

Odds & Ends

Putinism – An Ideology? | – 2/20/2013.

What English words employ the Spanish suffix ‘-ista’? – English Language & Usage Stack Exchange – I generally like my clevers but am not happy with the overtones, so I’m unlikely to employ “Putinista” again.

What WILL they talk about? Vladimir Putin buys £15m Marbella mansion, with Rod Stewart as a neighbour | Mail Online – 10/18/2012.  I would live there.  🙂  And jam with Rod.  It would be awesome.

From Pussy Riot to Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Putin has been underrated | Geoffrey Wheatcroft | Comment is free | The Guardian – 12/20/2013.

Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively cancels Christmas in Sochi ahead of 2014 Olympics | National Post – 11/29/2013

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Photos: Fighting intensifies in Aleppo, Syria | Al Jazeera America – 12/23/2013.

Syria: Refugee Babies In ‘Terrible’ Conditions – 12/23/2013.

Syrian civil war creating refugee crisis in Lebanon – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – 12/23/2013.

BBC News – Syria war: Many dead as Assad helicopters pound Aleppo – 12/22/2013.

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19th Century Modern | A blend of 19th Century interests in a Modern Day life

Oppenheim Arts & Letters: 19th Century Modern & 19th Century Modern | J. S. Oppenheim — All Together 😉

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Russia – Khodorkovsky Relaunched

22 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Politics, Russia

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There is no amnesty, however, for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Russian oligarch in jail since 2003.

Pussy Riot and Arctic 30 amnesty is a Putin masterstroke ahead of Olympics | World news | The Guardian – 12/18/2013

* * *

Khodorkovsky pledge: Freed tycoon won’t challenge Putin or return home – YouTube – Posted 12/22/2013.

I missed it!

Of course, I wasn’t looking for it.

It appears Luke Harding didn’t see it coming either four days ago.

But that was so last week.

Then too, perhaps President Putin on the 19th caught Mr. Harding’s but-you-forgot in his spyglass and decided to converse without direct words.

Who knows?

Putin does and my bet is he’s not talking about his thinking.

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Khodorkovsky happy and hopeful after 10 years as Putin’s top prisoner | World news | theguardian.com – by Luke Harding – 12/22/2013.

Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky speaks out – CNN.com – 12/22/2013.

Opinion: Don’t be fooled by Putin’s release of Khodorkovsky – CNN.com – by Masha Gessen – 12/21/2013.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky leaves Russian prison after Putin signs pardon – CNN.com – 12/21/2013.

Former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky freed from prison – latimes.com – 12/20/2013.

BBC News – Putin ‘to pardon’ jailed former oil tycoon Khodorkovsky – YouTube – 12/19/2013

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Buchanan Gets Putin in One Wrap

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Politics

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“He is seeking to redefine the ‘Us vs. Them’ world conflict of the future as one in which conservatives, traditionalists and nationalists of all continents and countries stand up against the cultural and ideological imperialism of what he sees as a decadent West,” Buchanan said.

Pat Buchanan: Anti-LGBT Vladimir Putin is a true conservative hero | The Raw Story – 12/17/2013.

* * *

Did you know that in Sweden, “early sex is the norm—from the age of nine?” Or that the pro-European protests rocking Ukraine are part of a Western plot to revenge 18th-century Tsarist military victories? And not only should gays be prohibited from donating organs, but their hearts, upon death, should be burnt or buried because they are “unsuitable for extending the life of another?”

Welcome to the world of Dmitry Kiselyov, now the most powerful man in Russian media.

Meet Dmitry Kiselyov, Putin’s New Shock Jock – The Daily Beast – 12/17/2013.

* * *

“While preserving the secular nature of our state, and not allowing the over-involvement of the government in Church life, we need to get away from the vulgar, primitive understanding of secularism,” he said.

“The Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional religions should get every opportunity to fully serve in such important fields as the support of family and motherhood, the upbringing and education of children, youth, social development, and to strengthen the patriotic spirit of the armed forces.”

Church should have more control over Russian life: Putin | Reuters – 2/1/2013.

* * *

Putin is a man with a plan: He wants to show the world — his fellow autocrats in particular — that Russia is a steadfast ally, in contrast to the U.S., which has the nasty habit of throwing allies under buses. He wants to reassert Russian influence in the Middle East. That Assad provides Russia with a Mediterranean port is icing on the babka.

Vladimir Putin, the Neo-Soviet Man | National Review Online – 9/19/2013.

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In forests clear cut for timber, the second growth comes up thorny.  In that way, perhaps, nature protects her wild enterprise until the trees once again shut out the sun.

Pat Buchanan’s remarks, rather parallel to Putin’s, belie the Christian side of post-medieval cultural, nationalist, and religious fascism.

“Our kind” becomes its own enterprise.

“Your kind” stand in the way of “our kind” — or, simply, we find “your kind” offensive.

Post-Soviet Russia has developed some thorns and the 75-year-old son of the old south Pat Buchanan has perhaps recognized in Putin’s cant a part of his own proclivities and, unintentionally, sent a signal as to where such ideas may lead.

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On American Jews and the Pro-Israel Lobby (ADL archived remarks).

Pat Buchanan – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 12/17/2013.

Why MSNBC Dumped Pat Buchanan: His 10 Most Outrageous Statements | ThinkProgress – 2/17/2012.

Related: The New Blacklist – Patrick J. Buchanan – Official Website – 2/17/2012.

Menachem Rosensaft: Patrick Buchanan: What Else Is New? – 5/25/2013.

* * *

Putin doesn’t talk so much.

A fast glance at “state, nationalism” searches suggests to me that anti-Soviet sentiment in now post-Soviet clients has produced some anti-Russian drift, the facets of which seem tied up with relations to The Bear rather than The Jews.  Putin himself has been careful to navigate carefully as regards Russia’s multicultural modernity and the state’s relationship with Israel, which he seems to respect — not to mention by way, possibly, of his military’s purchase of second-tier military technology from Israel — and Russia’s need for revived validation in self-concept rooted in the historic tradition of the Great Imperial period.

* * *

Putin narrates a similar decline of the West and caution at importing Western ideas, particularly liberalism, into Russia. His speech dwelled on the West’s rejection of Christian values and traditions and bemoaned its embrace of political correctness and homosexuality. To him these have placed the West on a path of “degradation and primitivism, resulting in a profound demographic and moral crisis.”

Historical Lineages of Putin’s Russian National Identity | Russia – 9/26/2013.

Perhaps ironically, as “Buchanan gets Putin”, Putin gets Israel, relating Jewish ethnic nationalism to Slavic ethnic resurgence.  It’s not an unpleasant idea as one may note that language culture and cultural legacy are inseparable and of necessity must be valued but constrained, this with about 7,000 living languages extant, to state and region.

To what extent do hate and xenophobia integrate with ethnic pride and strength?  To be ourselves, whether in our homes or in the possession of a state, must we hate someone else who is not necessarily “out to get us”?

It’s a tough question.

Buchanan seems to have answered it for himself a long time ago.

Putin would seem to be answering with multicultural or secular state policy on one hand while encouraging traditional conservative Christian attitudes on the other, but he’s not so vocal as to lay himself out for definitive cultural and political dissection on the matter.

Perhaps the baseline is in fact the autocracy of the 19th Century accompanied by the desire to see a Russian way into the future rather than suffer co-option by the open societies of the west, but what comes marching behind that may look anti-Napoleonic and impossibly anachronistic, albeit grandiose, messianic, and armed to match.

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Despotism | ? Ukraine ? | Democracy

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Europe, Fast News Share, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

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▶ Rival rallies over Ukraine future | Journal – YouTube – 12/15/2013.

” . . . so that Moscow does not walk all over us.”

* * *

EU halts deal talks: EU senior official suspends Ukraine trade talks – YouTube – Posted 12/15/2013.

* * *

KIEV, Ukraine — The European Union on Sunday broke off talks with Ukraine on the far-reaching trade deal that protesters here have been demanding for weeks, and a top official issued a stinging, angry statement all but accusing Ukraine’s president of dissembling.

European Union Suspends Talks With Ukraine Over Trade Deal – NYTimes.com – 12/15/2013.

* * *

“Words & deeds of President [Viktor Yanukovych] & government regarding the Association Agreement are further & further apart. Their arguments have no grounds in reality,” he twitted on Sunday.

EU suspending work with Ukrainian govt on Association Agreement – Fule – 12/15/2013.

* * *

While the European Union insists that the door is still open for Ukraine to join the EU, President Viktor Yanukovych is walking the tightrope between appeasing the wishes of his people and keeping Russian President Vladimir Putin happy.

Yanukovych needs to hear pleas of his people | GulfNews.com – 12/15/2013

* * *

Mr Yanukovych had already sent his skullcrackers in once to Independence Square in Kiev, centre of the protests that erupted in November after he rejected an association agreement with the European Union, in favour of an opaque economic deal with Russia. That needless brutality brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets.

Crackdown in Ukraine: Goodbye, Putin | The Economist – 12/14/2013.

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All of the conflicts BackChannels has been watching have to do with the despotic versus the democratic.

In some instances, the despotic force is sufficient to repress and silence the latent organizations and personalities arrayed against it; in others, there’s yet opportunity to assert a popular will on behalf of human dignity and human rights against mafia-style state-based machinations and privilege.

Ukrainians, of course, have just found The Bear once again climbing aboard their own back.

The “new nobility” not only have their hands in the gushing revenue stream associated with Russia’s energy industry, but they may have also their hands on the spigot, and with winter yet to begin — hard to believe this year that ice and snow have arrived so early everywhere in the northern latitudes — the same could give them the cold treatment.

A glance at the reading tells me Ukrainians owe Moscow some money too for energy already consumed.  That will give Moscow some whining room in the coming negotiations.

* * *

Joseph Stalin’s decision in 1928 to seize privately held agricultural land and transform it into collective farms caused massive hardship for all Soviet peasants. When authorities expropriated peasant grain stocks and farm animals, hunger broke out in much of the USSR. In Ukraine, where close to a million peasants actively rebelled against collectivization, such expropriations were especially severe, leading to widespread starvation that the state both refused to alleviate and purposely aggravated until millions had died and a massive crackdown on Ukrainian political, cultural, and religious elites had been completed. At the height of the Holodomor, 25,000 Ukrainians starved per day; cannibalism was rampant.

Remembering the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide | World Affairs Journal – 12/13/2013.

Ukrainians know well the Soviet part of the post-Soviet Russian story, and one would think it doubtful the same should now entertain a return to all of that, especially absent the cover of socialist concern that accompanied the theft.

Related: Oleh Tyahnybok – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “[You are the ones] that the Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine fears most”[11] / and / “They were not afraid and we should not be afraid. They took their automatic guns on their necks and went into the woods, and fought against the Moskali, Germans, Kikes and other scum who wanted to take away our Ukrainian state.”[10]

Next Ukrainian headache: resurgent anti-Semitic eastern European nationalism.

How is it that the potentially despotic engaging the established despotic cannot recognize in themselves the same idiotic malignant ambitions?

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BBC News – Kasparov: Stop calling Putin a democrat – 9/12/2013.

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BBC HARDtalk – Garry Kasparov (12/9/13) – YouTube – Posted 9/14/2013;  BBC News – Kasparov: Stop calling Putin a democrat – 9/12/2013.

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“. . . Putin is “powerful” abroad because West has been so weak confronting him. This influence is their gift & he takes it.”

Kasparov on Ukraine, Putin and EU (with tweets) · TeamKasparov · Storify – Tweeted 12/1/2013.

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Yanukovych backed off the agreement on the grounds that the EU was not providing adequate compensation to his economically struggling nation for potential trades losses with Russia. Russia, which for centuries controlled or exerted heavy influence on Ukraine, wants the country to join a customs union, analogous to the EU, which also includes Belarus and Kazakhstan.

The opposition says that union would effectively reconstitute the Soviet Union and remain suspicious that Yanukovych might agree to it when he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

Ukrainian opposition presses with massive rally – 12/15/2013.

* * *

Earlier this month:

Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz said it agreed with Russian gas giant Gazprom to defer payments for winter gas supplies until early 2014. With Ukraine embroiled in protests, and Europe making headway on energy diversification strategies, the move signals a tilt by Kiev back to its former Kremlin patrons.

Amid Ukraine protests, energy sector tilts toward Russia – CSMonitor.com – 12/5/2013.

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Putin’s Leverage Over Dependent and Indebted Ukraine Stirs Protests

13 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Fast News Share, Politics, Regions, Russia, Ukrain

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▶ Protesters clash with police in Ukraine – YouTube – Posted 12/13/2013.

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▶ Ukraine: opposition leaders attend talks with president – YouTube – Posted 12/13/2013.

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European officials are in discussion with the IMF, the World Bank and other major financial bodies on ways of helping the ex-Soviet republic should it decide to sign the free-trade agreement with the EU after all.

Putin had threatened to respond to such a deal with economic sanctions against Ukraine, which has huge debts and unpaid gas bills outstanding with Moscow. Ukraine’s ultimate decision could be decisive to Putin’s Eurasian Union plan.

Kiev protesters gather, EU and Putin joust | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT – 12/13/2013.

* * *

Putin’s comments made clear his continued designs on Ukraine and that “by hook or by crook” he will seek to try and drag it into the so-called Eurasian Union, his long-cherished idea “of reincarnating some semblance of the Soviet Union,” said Boris Tarasyuk, Ukraine’s ex-foreign minister.

Putin speaks on Ukraine; protesters rebuild barricades – latimes.com – 12/13/2013.

* * *

The agreement could have clinched a tumultuous shift by the strategic former Soviet republic in the past decade toward embracing Western economic and political values. Mr. Yanukovych’s sudden decision to turn his back on the deal late last month infuriated the nation’s opposition parties and sent millions of pro-Western, pro-democracy demonstrators into the streets of Kiev.

Echoes of Cold War in Ukraine as Russia tries to rein in former Soviet satellites – Washington Times – 12/13/2013.

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Cultural, political, and social values matter.

Of course, energy supply and security matter too.

Ukrainians today find themselves in a bind between alliance with the developing pseudo-democratic, post-Soviet, Putinist state developing in Russia, or radiating from Moscow as much of Russia has been left to suffer as well, and their humanist drift toward the compassionate and inclusive values of the open democracies of the European Union.

In rhetoric on the Russian side, readers here will recognize an instance of the “paranoid delusional narcissistic reflection of motivation.”  Although Russian spokesmen score “the west” on its struggles within the Islamic Small Wars (never mind what President Kadyrov has been up to in Chechnya as regards shepherding Islamic or barbarous values — in some places, it’s hard separating the two — within his sphere), the political outsiders in Russia’s intelligentsia and in the satellites have a fair sense of what’s what in Russia’s “power-of-vertical” state revolving around President Putin.

* * *

President Vladimir Putin has declared that Russia has a morally superior worldview to that of the West.

Vladimir Putin: Russia is Morally Superior to the West – IBTimes UK – 12/12/2013.

* * *

Stefan Meister, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr Putin had lost room for political maneourve as he entered his presidential third term since 2000. “He has isolated himself from the proactive part of society and the elite,” he said. “He has surrounded himself with hardliners from the security service who promote Russia’s “modernisation” through the country’s military-industrial complex.”

Vladimir Putin claims Russia is moral compass of the world – Telegraph – 12/12/2013.

* * *

“The EU offers a token package, which is not of any interest to the Ukrainian government,” Alexei Pushkov, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Russia’s Parliament, told CNN’s Hala Gorani, who was sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.

“That’s why Mister Yanukovych has initially rejected it,” he said. “Then all these demonstrations started with the participation of the European ministers…who were speaking on the Maidan [Kiev’s Independence Square], joining the protesters, and so on.”

Russia: EU, not Moscow, is bullying Ukraine – Amanpour – CNN.com Blogs – CNN video plus accompanying article – 12/12/2013.

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No state in the former Soviet Union’s sphere of influence needs reminding who has the energy supply plus a massive and vulgar army (presented in the video at the base of this post and represented by memories of its appearance in Georgia a few years ago).

The challenge in the post-Soviet era for former Soviet satellites uncomfortable with Moscow is how to navigate with and around what The Guardian‘s journalist Luke Harding has called the “mafia state”.

In Russia, power hasn’t to do with the liberation of independent spirits and the productive energies of a people: as with its superficially mirror opposite in Islam’s mix of military and theocratic dictatorships, “political power” refers to absolute control.

In essence, the causes and the talk may be wildly different, but similar personalities construct their societies in response to their own internal needs.

Putin’s claim to moral superiority as regards the west would seem well demonstrated by Russia’s continuing and supportive relationships with both the Bashar Assad’s bomb-happy reign of terror in Syria and Ayatollah Khamenei’s iron grip (not to mention about $90 billion in personal accumulation) on Iran.  Those three plus President Kadyrov would seem to be “in it” — the money, at least — together.

As much may be known to educated and web-enabled and still recently politically liberated Ukrainians who have taken to the streets braving bone-chilling cold and potentially bone-breaking state paramilitary to make their views count.

Related Reference

Podcast: ‘EuroMaidan’ And The Russian Street – 12/13/2013.

BBC News – Ukraine protesters rebuild barricades in centre of Kiev – 12/12/2013.

Best pictures from the past 24 hours – The Globe and Mail – 12/12/2013.

Ukrainian riot police surround Kiev protesters | World news | theguardian.com – 12/10/2013.

Ukraine Opposition: No Talks Unless Govt Fired – ABC News – 12/7/2013.

Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovich meets with Putin to map out partnership – World – CBC News – 12/6/2013.

How Ukraine can someday join the EU – CSMonitor.com – 12/3/2013.

Ukraine halts Russian gas imports; transit to Europe intact – sources | Reuters – 11/11/2013.

New Eastern Europe – Russians Love Georgia, But They Don’t Love Independent Georgia – 10/08/2013.

The Putin Doctrine – Los Angeles Times – 9/12/2013.

Wikipedia

Arseniy Yatsenyuk – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Russia–Georgia war – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2008 Georgia–Russia crisis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Putinism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georgia

A day after a face-to-face meeting with President George W. Bush in Beijing who expressed ‘grave concern’, Mr Putin accused the U.S. of siding with Georgia by ferrying Georgian troops from Iraq to the battle zone.

‘It is a shame that some of our partners are not helping us but, essentially, are hindering us,’ said Mr Putin. ‘The very scale of this cynicism is astonishing.’

Georgia ‘overrun’ by Russian troops as full-scale ground invasion begins | Mail Online – n.d.

They have frequently shifted the boundary south of the previously accepted course – Mr Makhachashvili says Russian troops around Dvani were using maps dated 1921 – in effect grabbing hectares of extra land.

Moscow has said South Ossetian authorities were merely demarcating its true boundary, using Soviet-era maps.

Tbilisi nervously eyes Russia’s border barricade of South Ossetia – FT.com – 11/6/2013.

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Russian Army Soldiers in South Ossetia(Georgia) Burn American Flag – YouTube – Posted 8/5/2013.

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Live Streaming the Ukrainian Revolt: http://www.vice.com/read/live-streaming-the-ukrainian-revolt – encountered 12/13/2013.

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Putin on Stage – Bright Lights: Big Emerging Online Global Civilization

12 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Political Spychology, Politics, Psychology, Russia

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Since Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency he never really left, Russia’s descent into neo-Soviet authoritarianism has become daily more brazen. Dissidents are once again being put on show trials that call up the ghosts of Joseph Brodsky, Andrei Sinyavsky, and Yuli Daniel. Laws are being jammed through the Duma with the express purpose of making Western-minded Russians fear that they will be arrested for spying for foreign powers.

Rights in Russia: Navalny and the Opposition | World Affairs Journal – November/December 2013.

* * *

The state media regulator Roskomnadzor filed a motion with the court in early October to have the agency’s license revoked, accusing the agency of publishing videos with foul language, according to reports in the local and international press.

Moscow court revokes news agency’s license – Committee to Protect Journalists – 10/31/2013.

Russia as patient has taken a turn for the worse.

While Putin’s machinery poses its challenges to foul language (and gay pride, judging by the latest), it would seem to welcome every opportunity to further abuse basic human rights and democratic values.  By way of doing what it has been doing — and doing it better — it has inspired its opposition locally, online, and worldwide.

The MediEval Empire is back!

And it is fast returning Russians to the status of loyal — more and more frequently, barely tolerated — subjects.

Ah, the glory.

The funny thing is, predictably, with Al Qaeda operating in Syria, Putin remains an heroic standard bearer for decency and freedom despite what the Putin-armed Assad regime has done to Syrians (don’t look — at least put it off twenty more seconds) and what Putin’s editing of laws may be doing (are) to Russia’s vast and under-served constituency.

Still, the disappointment . . . .

Peering out from behind the bars of the closed and censored USSR, during the Perestroika period, we young journalists felt an incredible urge for freedom. While we were all ready to make sacrifices for that prize, none of us could not imagine in our worst nightmares that in a free Russia journalists could be killed for their work. Media professionals could be censored in USSR, fired, jailed or even exiled – but not killed. We also believed – and our Western counterparts with whom we were shared this belief – that the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War would herald in a new era of free expression and independent talented journalism would inevitably flourish across Europe and Central Asia. East and West, we would create a bright liberated information space stretching undimmed from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We failed utterly to anticipate and foresee how corrupt authorities and criminal gangs would develop new forms of censorship and pressure to bring our dream so violently to heel.

Nadezhda Azhgikhina: Combating Impunity in the Digital Age – Human Rights in Russia – 11/11/2013.

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I shouldn’t, really, but I feel compelled to put these next two items side by side:

Russia’s Putin nominated for Nobel Peace Prize – Washington Times – 10/2/2013:

The Russian advocacy group International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation of Peoples of the World nominated Mr. Putin, characterizing his forged agreement with Syrian President Bashar Assad — to turn over admitted chemical weapons cache to international authorities — a world-class and prize-worthy piece of diplomacy, United Press International reported.

Artist Mutilates Self as Putin Paralyzes Russia – Bloomberg – 11/12/2013:

On Nov. 10, Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky undressed on Moscow’s Red Square, right in front of Lenin’s tomb, sat down and nailed his scrotum to the pavement.

Reactions to the radical act, which Pavlensky meant to be a “metaphor of the apathy, political indifference and fatalism of modern Russian society,” ranged from disbelief to mockery. A police source told state-owned news agency RIA Novosti that the action constituted normal behavior “for a mentally ill person.”

Make of that what you will — ouch! — and otherwise enjoy the references.

Netflix has it, so I’m off to watch the Khodorkovsky documentary.

Additional General Reference

Institute of Modern Russia

Institute of Modern Russia (Facebook)

Khodorkovsky (2011) – IMDb

Lenin, Stalin and Their Victims: Archive Footage | Video | RIA Novosti – video (3:03) – 10/30/2013 – “Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression”.

Michael Weiss | World Affairs Journal

One day in the life of Mikhail Khodorkovsky – FT.com – 10/24/2013.

Pavel Khodorkovsky

Pavel Khodorkovsky: Charlie Rose (11/07): Video – Bloomberg

Names You Need To Know: Pavel Khodorkovsky – Forbes – 5/9/2011

Pyotr Ofitserov: The Man Who Stood Beside Navalny To The Bitter End – VOA – 7/13/2013.

Russia: Drop Charges for Aiding Dying Patient | Human Rights Watch – 11/11/2013.

Russia: Drop Suits Against Independent Groups | Human Rights Watch – 11/6/2013.

Russia: TV Crew Reporting on Sochi Olympics Harassed | Human Rights Watch – 11/5/2013: “From October 31 to November 2, 2013, Russian traffic police stopped Øystein Bogen, a reporter for TV2, and cameraman Aage Aunes six times while the men were reporting on stories in the Republic of Adygea, which borders Sochi to the north along the Black Sea coast. Officials took the journalists into police custody three times. At every stop and in detention, officials questioned the journalists aggressively about their work plans in Sochi and other areas, their sources, and in some cases about their personal lives, educational backgrounds, and religious beliefs. In several instances they denied the journalists contact with the Norwegian Embassy in Moscow. One official threatened to jail Bogen.”

Russian Union of Journalists – Main Page; Russian Union of Journalists : The Other Russia: “News from the Coalition for Democracy in Russia.”  Note: Items listed in several categories — I have not checked all — seem to trail off in early 2013.

The Bell | The Interpreter

The Interpreter

The stage illusion laid bare | openDemocracy – by Peter Pomerantsev – 7/8/2013.  Review of Ben Judah’s Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Pastukhov | openDemocracy

Vladimir Putin: his place in history | openDemocracy – by Vladimir Pastukhov – 2/9/2012

Vladimir Putin

No shame in protesting against pro-Putin conductor, Valery Gergiev » Spectator Blogs – 11/12/2013.

Putin’s All-Purpose Weapon – NYTimes.com – by Masha Gessen – 9/30/2013.

Vladimir Putin, Through Western Eyes (Photos) | News | The Moscow Times – 9/27/2013.

Wikipedia Reference Section — Putin’s Accusers and Accused (You Figure Out Which is Which)

Alexander Bastrykin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexei Navalny – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Boris Berezovsky (businessman) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dmitry Medvedev – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward Snowden – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

NSA leaker Snowden gets Russian Web technology job – latimes.com – 10/31/2013.

Guardian faces fresh criticism over Edward Snowden revelations | Media | theguardian.com – 11/10/2013.

Investigative Committee of Russia – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sergey Sobyanin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mikhail Khodorkovsky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Klebnikov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pussy Riot – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Related Late Breaking News

Jailed Anti-Kremlin Punk Rocker Launches New Appeal | Russia | RIA Novosti – 11/7/2013: “Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, said he had been informed the Pussy Riot band member was being relocated to a prison colony in the territory of Krasnoyarsk, located 3400 kilometers (2100 miles) east of Moscow, but authorities have yet to confirm that information.”

Pussy riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova now missing for more than three weeks – with her disappearance sparking fears some of the Greenpeace 30 could also be ‘lost’ – Europe – World – The Independent – 11/12/2013.

Pussy Riot leader lost in Russia’s prison system, husband says – latimes.com – 11/10/2013.

Sergei Magnitsky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georgy Satarov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rights in Russia (organization)

Rights in Russia (Facebook)

Nadezhda Azhgikhina: Combating Impunity in the Digital Age – Human Rights in Russia – 11/11/2013.

United Russia – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Viktor Bout – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; incidentally, recently back in the news: Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout’s U.S. conviction upheld | Reuters – 9/27/2013; Arms Dealer Viktor Bout ‘in New Appeal’ to U.S. Supreme Court | News | The Moscow Times – 11/8/2013.

Vladislav Surkov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yury Luzhkov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia Reference Section – A Glance at Dissidents of the Soviet Era

Andrei Sakharov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Andrei Sinyavsky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joseph Brodsky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mihail Chemiakin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “With his colleagues from the museum he organized an exhibition in 1964, after which the director of the museum was fired and all the participants forced to resign. In 1967 he co-authored with philosopher Vladimir Ivanov a treatise called “Metaphysical Synthesism”, which laid out his artistic principles, and created the “St. Petersburg Group” of artists . In 1971 he was exiled from the Soviet Union for failing to conform to Socialist Realism norms.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mstislav Rostropovich – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “Rostropovich fought for art without borders, freedom of speech, and democratic values, resulting in harassment from the Soviet regime. An early example was in 1948, when he was a student at the Moscow Conservatory. In response to the 10 February 1948 decree on so-called ‘formalist’ composers, his teacher Dmitri Shostakovich was dismissed from his professorships in Leningrad and Moscow; the then 21-year-old Rostropovich quit the conservatory, dropping out in protest.”

Natan Sharansky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pyotr Grigorenko – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rudolf Nureyev – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Soviet dissidents – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (section contributing source)

Vasily Aksyonov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yelena Bonner – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yuli Daniel – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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All of that above: barely a morning’s drag-and-drop with a hint or two of actual writing in it . . . .  I like it although it could change that old book title and jazz and music  line “That was then, this is now” to “That was then: THIS is still THEN.”

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Perhaps we could have both for a while — then, now, and then.

And now.

▶ The Monkees – That Was Then, This Is Now (Version 1) – YouTube

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FNS – Brief – Putin’s Developing Russia Developing Political Competition

10 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Eurasia, Politics, Russia

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His criticism of Luhansk and its corrupt, thuggish, and authoritarian Regionnaire authorities has remained unsparing. They’re easy to lambast and deserve every bit of his ire. Luhansk suffers from a rust-belt economy, collapsing social services, unhealthy living conditions, and a particularly sedentary Regionnaire elite.

A Ukrainian Blogger for Luhansk Mayor? | World Affairs Journal – 11/8/2013.

Related: Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin: Ben Judah: 9780300181210: Amazon.com: Books — Published June 2013.

Post-Soviet and Eastern European scholar and political science professor Alexander J. Motyl comments on Russia’s co-evolving dissenting political competition with his take on “Proctologist” blogger Stanislav Tsikalovsky, whom he predicts will climb the web vine up into a local political career between five and ten years from now.

I wouldn’t make such sunny predictions: in Putin’s Russia, a lot can happen in five hours — ask Khodorkovsky (Khodorkovsky’s main advocacy page)– much less five days, months, or years.

I’m less certain of what to make of the nom de blogging guerre “Proctologist” except to note the scatological relationship to “Pussy Riot” and the potential for Putin’s Russia to develop an entire generational legion of brothers and sisters in virtual arms and mutual contempt for what they will perceive as the ethical and moral failings of a regime to which they may relate as moral avatars and otherwise disenfranchised outsiders.

The worse it gets, the worse they’ll get would be my prediction.  Even so, my impression is such a development may not have much room for maneuver as Putin’s post-KGB FSB organizes defensively in relation to them.

Related: http://proctolog.blog.top.lg.ua/ (I like the slogan: “Believe me, for the crazy always tell the truth”).

Related: Truth and Hopelessness in Luhansk | World Affairs Journal – 3/30/2012.

Related: Auk Nr. 8 Clip (PIT No. 8) – IMDb – video trailer, posted in 2010.

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Names!  Dropped with exclamation marks in Backchannels!

Navalny!

Putin!

Honorably mentioned with an exclamation mark:

Russia — Yevgeny Roizman — May He Turn Out a Mensch!

I will try to be more careful with exclamation marks! — now that I see so many of them in one place in relation to related subjects.

* * *

Perhaps not with “Blueberry Hill”, I wonder if Putin could not play Carnegie, setting in his autocratic wake a plethora of great homes and monuments that over time might integrate the greater Russian tapestry.  In that the rich, however they may have gotten there, believe the world should serve them, they may realize they have the obligation to spend it some.  Locally.  Regionally.  Nationally.

Or face taxes.

Or worse.

Eventually.

I jest today.

The emerging oligarchy is not Romanov, and its basis for being rather seems to twine with feudal national building: why not control the initial engines and outflows of the post-Soviet economy to one’s own temporal advantage but also to create an influential class — that “new nobility” — from varied quarters, including old school chums?

Metals and banking tycoons Vladimir Potanin and Mikhail Fridman, who made their fortunes in the 90s, are still high on the list of Russia’s richest men. But the past decade saw a rise of new billionaires who draw their wealth from state contracts and some of whom are known to be the presidents’ friends, like Gennady Timchenko.

Russia’s Wealth Inequality One Of Highest In The World – 10/9/2013.

It reads awfully unfair, but that’s today’s news, not next generation’s news.

For a few Russians, there is a “gilded age” — their own.  What they amass, what they build, what they leave by way of constructive investments spells the fortunes of an era to come.

However he has done it, Putin has organized a state, and that being so, he has given his emerging political competitors a lot to work with.

* * *

Related on the vicissitudes attending wealth and noblesse oblige:

▶ The Astor Orphan by Alexandra Aldrich – YouTube

▶ Andrew Carnegie—Gilded Age Philanthropist (From the Carnegie Hall Archives) – YouTube

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Putin!

13 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Paul McCartney – Back In The USSR (Live) – YouTube

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Things may be looking good to President Putin, but that doesn’t mean things look good for President Putin.

Basically, in his campaign on behalf of the ghost of Nicholas II, which may not be so bad, for where would the world be without its great mansions and museums, it’s breathtaking estates and hunting grounds, in a word its financial, political, and religious aristocracies — there would be no Versailles, for example, or one day, for another perhaps, a palatial estate on the Black Sea, one the property of a former president or, no need to discount the possibility, the seat of the New and Surviving Nobility — but he’s waked the phantoms of the Evil Empire, the Stasi, the KGB, the untrustworthy, the malignant, and the fearfully controlling.

* * *

So far, twenty-eight people have been charged as part of the case, which the state has tried to present as a planned conspiracy—a putsch plotted from abroad and executed from within. Kosenko is the first to receive a verdict, perhaps setting a precedent for others. At the very least, his case sends a signal about the Kremlin’s rapaciousness not just in prosecuting the Bolotnaya defendants but in its desire to clamp down on all those in the opposition or sympathetic to it.

Putin’s Russia and the Conviction of Mikhail Kosenko : The New Yorker – 10/9/2013.

Related: Anti-Putin protester Mikhail Kosenko sent to psych ward in Russia | News.com.au – 10/9/2013 (AFP);

“Back in the USSR” indeed!

And yet . . . .

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Prior to his sentencing, Mikhail Kosenko had been treated for a mild schizophrenia, according to News AU.  However, as with many other organic conditions in our lives, simplified on/off states belie more complex and nuanced relationships, and that to the effect that a little something-something may need nothing even approaching hospitalization.

Kosenko was diagnosed in 2001 with mild schizophrenia, but his condition was controlled by medication and he had never shown any aggression, according to a statement from Human Rights Watch.

Russian activist Mikhail Kosenko sentenced to forced psychiatric treatment – CBS News – 10/8/2013.

As with Khodorkovsky, who seemed to be doing what come naturally after the dissolution of the USSR, and not all of that perfectly good but at least sensible, the subsequent kangaroo case sent the yellow and red flags flying around President Putin: with Khodorkovsky, the president confirmed his course.

Even so, even the Khodorkovsky saga gets fuzzy.

Putin once dismissed Khodorkovsky’s case by saying thieves must sit in jail. But asked about the ruling on Thursday, he said he bore no grudge against him, saying he had not played any role in the court’s decision.

Russian tycoon Khodorkovsky to walk free in 2014 – Chicago Tribune – 12/20/2012.

That day is coming, so we’ll soon see if Khodorkovsky’s release comes to pass, and, if so, whether any kind of real justice will be pursued or pawed aside.

Related: Midas Touch – Those With Putin Ties Glow Brightly – NYTimes.com – 3/1/2012; Vladimir Putin, the Richest Man on Earth – Bloomberg – 9/17/2013.

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Video: Pussy Riot prison protest puts Russia’s prisons under harsh scrutiny – Telegraph – 10/3/2013.

“I want to make a declaration to everyone who has a role in making the decision to put me in isolation,” Tolokonnikova wrote in her statement, seen by the Guardian. “If you think that without contact with my friends I will become amenable and open to compromise, and go back on the views I have formed about Mordovia’s camps during my time in jail, then you are horribly mistaken.”

Pussy Riot detainee accuses Russian officials of imposing illegal isolation | Music | theguardian.com – 10/11/2013.

Putin will no more return Russia to its imperial age, the age of empire predating the February Revolution than Al Qaeda will return the earth to its 7th Century political construction.  Even so, barbarians and dictators may live in their own mirrored bubbles, enjoying, so each may believe, the powerful endorsement of The People and the prestige of glorious high office or equivalent power even while their nation-state hosts dissolve by way of the abuse, corruption, and neglect they have brought them.

Putin’s Russia, tender with the still recent if inter-generational past, today reminds itself of the Soviet Era by way of the ghosts of the Gulag, the visitation of human rights abuse reports that should have stopped years ago, the recollection in the daily news that the United States or other “external forces” are The Enemy (somehow).

______

Russian prosecutors suspend leftist opposition group | Reuters – 4/19/2013.

Vladimir Putin lights Olympic flame amid crackdown on dissent | The Australian – 10/7/2013.

Russian President Vladimir Putin likes to preen as a defender of “values embedded in Christianity” and “moral standards,” as he put it in a press conference last month. But for those who associate Christian values with notions such as mercy and integrity, that image is hard to square with his blatant disregard for honest elections, rule of law and civil liberties.

Political Diary: President Putin’s Values – WSJ.com – 10/11/2013.

Related: Russia jails top opposition leader; Putin denounced as dictator | Reuters – 7/18/2013.

Related: Russia, Inc.: Power, Politics, and Money in Putin’s Kremlin | Wilson Center – n.d.; Why Is Vladimir Putin Acting So Crazy? – Businessweek – 8/29/2013.

I have wondered if dictators on their way to becoming so have not in their zest to acquire power found novel ways of trapping themselves in their own wires.

Consider for Putin what any form of retreat would mean as regards arrangements with Kadyrov in Chechnya, the FSB in Moscow, the happily patronized of the “new nobility”; consider for Russia what effects Putin’s absence from power would have on arrangements around the “vertical of power”.

Putin has weaved a web with himself essential to it.

One worries that it might not let him go even if he should wish to move sideways into some other and more noble life.

Related Reference

Kremlin Crooks: Putin’s ‘Patriotic’ Hypocrites | World Affairs Journal – July/August 2013:

If the level of domestic political repression in Vladimir Putin’s Russia has not yet reached the scale of that in the Soviet Union—though several dozen Russian political prisoners are being held behind bars on fabricated charges—the level of officially sanctioned anti-Western agitation, and anti-Americanism in particular, is certainly comparable to the worst years of the Cold War.

The Power Vertical

Refugees from Chechnya Seek New Life in Germany – SPIEGEL ONLINE – 8/28/2013.

Putin’s Medieval Peace Pact in Chechnya – Bloomberg – 4/26/2013:

Instead of solving the North Caucasus issue, however, Putin created a monster. To end the fighting, he cut a deal with Chechnya’s rebel Kadyrov clan: In exchange for loyalty to the Kremlin, they received power and reconstruction aid.

Dispatches: What Putin didn’t tell the American people | Human Rights Watch – 9/12/2013:

There is not a single mention in Putin’s article, addressed to the American people, of the egregious crimes committed by the Syrian government and extensively documented by the UN Commission of Inquiry, local and international human rights groups, and numerous journalists: deliberate and indiscriminate killings of tens of thousands of civilians, executions, torture, enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests. His op-ed also makes no mention of Russia’s ongoing transfer of arms to Assad throughout the past two and a half years.

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