Salon - The New York Times doesn’t want you to understand this Vladimir Putin speech

[newthinking]

[font size=2] The New York Times doesn’t want you to understand this Vladimir Putin speech

The Russian leader delivers an important foreign policy address we should consider.
The Times botches it badly

Patrick L. Smith


Vladimir Putin (Credit: Reuters/Yves Herman)

Give me a sec to count. In my lifetime the Soviet Union and latterly the Russian Federation have had nine leaders. Stalin’s death elevated Malenkov and then Khrushchev, and the banishing of Khrushchev led to Brezhnev. Then came a pair of forgettables, then Gorbachev and on to the ever-inebriated Yeltsin (whom one wants dearly to forget). For 15 years, counting the Dmitry Medvedev interval, Vladimir Putin has held the wheel of the Russian bus.

Of all these figures only Stalin, and only in his post-“Uncle Joe” years, has been vilified to the extent of the current Russian leader. The question is obvious and I hope not too complicated: Why?

There are always plenty of answers floating around. I take almost all of them to lie somewhere between misguided and malevolent by intent, but I will get to this in a minute. In as few words as I can manage, here is my thought: Putin has fallen drastically afoul of Washington — and his war is with Washington more than the Europeans — because those in deep slumber do not like to be awakened.

It is an irresistible time to consider this problem for two reasons. One, in history two sure signs of imperial decline are deafness and blindness in the imperial capital, and as of the past year or so Washington exhibits seriously deteriorating symptoms. The willful refusal of our foreign policy cliques to look squarely at our world and listen to those in it is getting dangerous.

Two, Putin has just delivered a speech every American deserves to hear and consider. Few will have done so for the simple reason that our media declined to tell you about the Russian leader’s presentation to an annual gathering of leaders and thinkers called the Valdai International Discussion Club, a Davos variant. Here is the Kremlin transcript, and now readers have two things to decide: What they think of the speech and what they think of the American media for not reporting it.

Continued/full article: http://www.salon.com/2014/11/07/the_new_york_times_doesnt_want_you_to_understand_this_vladimir_putin_speech/
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[cprise]

1. I read his speech as a message to BRICS counterparts

as much as a message to the US. Of course, the west will be extra nice to B_ICS now that the boogeyman dial has been turned back to Russia.

[Lodestar]

3. Excellent read...thanks for posting. So important to have alternative sources

to work around the MSM's gag order. THANK YOU SALON (and Patrick Smith)! How can we be players in a world when we can't even participate
in the discussion due to a lack of information/recognition about what the rest of the world thinks, says, does.?
Like any bad relationship it can only lead to divorce with our global partners.

[Lodestar]

4. "...Putin stands for the right of non-Western nations to BE non-Western..."

...What about Putin’s human rights record? What about the oligarchs? What about the “fervent nationalism,” Russian nationalism always being fervent when described by American hacks? What about “autocracy”? And that Christian fundamentalism of Putin’s? What about the Russian press, and the judges, the well-meaning NGOs taking American funding and …?

These are not bad questions. They are simply not the germane questions, and they are best answered by Russians in any case. The question for us is, What are dissenters from the orthodoxy to do as they recognize that Putin stands for the right of non-Western nations to be non-Western, to escape imitation, to create and solve their problems themselves? It is because Putin insists this right must be part of a truly new world order that he is singled out in the long list of Russia’s postwar leaders.

Do not ask why a leader as evil as Beelzebub by our reckoning enjoys an approval rating of nearly 90 percent. I have just told you why.

Even the Financial Times correspondent in Sochi, where the Valdai gathering was held, acknowledged the significance of Putin’s presentation. “The speech,” Neil Buckley wrote, “was one of Mr. Putin’s most important foreign policy statements since he surprised the West in Münich in 2007 by accusing the U.S. of ‘overstepping its boundaries in every way’ and creating new dividing lines in Europe.”

[Bluenorthwest]

5. He's an anti gay bigot. Some folks admired apartheid South African leaders because to them

the horrific racism was not a problem. Some people admire bigots because to them, the bigotry is not a problem.

[Lodestar]

6. Bigots of all stripes reside in our own government and even in our own families.

Heck...there are even some bigots who continue to see all Germans as Nazis, etc. ETC.
So what is your point? I think Putin, regardless of his own bigotry, is also pointing out
America's bigotry relative to our nation's desire to have every country in the world look like
us and believe in our own standards, values, government, etc., perhaps because we feel less
threatened when everyone else looks just like us. Does Putin's bigotry make his assessment
of our own any less true?

[newthinking]

7. Our own gay rights movement is not that old and took time. And this is not the way to prod Russia

forward.

The *ONLY* reason there is a spotlight on Russia's issues is because that is where manipulators want it to be. Those manipulators are primarily Neoconservatives and global bankers, and in reality they could care less about human rights.

[yurbud]

10. if our government were worried about human rights, they wouldn't be allies with Saudi, Uzbekistan...

and on down the list.

[yurbud]

9. such bigots and racists just won control of our Congress, and the corporate wing of Dems

have no problem working with them and even embracing large parts of their agenda without being forced to.

[Lodestar]

8. Interesting response from Putin to question from American in the Q&A after his speech

NIKOLAI ZLOBIN (Centre on Global Interests, Washington, D.C. ) The direction is exactly what I would like to find out.

Incidentally, I made a note of the way you described the modern world, and overall I agree with it: injustice, monopoly on power, attempts at pressure, manipulation and propaganda. Frequently this is exactly how political life in Russia is described in Washington, where I live. This is just to give you an idea of the opposite point of view. However, my question has nothing to do with this.

On September 11, 2001, I was in America. I watched America change after that day. It is different now. It has become more hardened. Tolerance levels have gone down. The President’s rating went up sharply. Everybody became very patriotic. America became more aggressive in its foreign policy and closed itself to the rest of the world.

Perhaps I am mistaken, and if so please convince me that I am wrong, but I get the impression that Russia is beginning to repeat the mistakes made by America. Your rating is very high and that’s great. However, this fantastic patriotism you have in your country in my view is beginning to break up into the right and wrong kinds of patriotism. The right kind refers to those who support you and everything you do, while the wrong one applies to people who have the nerve to criticise you or, say, disagree with you on some issues. I think in some cases, patriotism finds its expression in a very dangerous form of nationalism, which is sharply on the rise in Russia, the way I see it.

Simultaneously I will try to argue with one of the statements you made in your address. I think Russia has become closed to the world lately. This is not only because the world is shutting Russia out, but also because Russia is doing things that shut it from the rest of the world. Certain educational exchange programmes have been shut down, certain NGO’s have been cut off from funding even though they were not involved in politics, and there is a search for foreign agents and registration of dual citizenship. There are many things I can name here – things that, in my view, speak of a certain tendency. I used to believe that the more Russia was integrated into the global community and the world into Russia, the safer it would be. However, now it seems you have decided differently: the less Russia – Russian society, civil society – is integrated into the world, the safer Russia would feel.

Over the years since September 11, America, where I live, proved to me that it has become less democratic. I have the impression that Russia is becoming less democratic. If I am mistaken, please show me where I went wrong.

Thank you.

********

VLADIMIR PUTIN: First, regarding whether Russia is shutting itself off or not. I already said this in my address and will say it again - we do not intend to shut ourselves off. The fact is that others are trying to seal Russia off. This is obvious. Your leaders say as much in public – they say they want to punish Russia and it will pay dearly, it will become an outcast and so forth. However, it is unclear how they intend to resolve global issues with such an outcast – and it seems as though they also realise that it is impossible.

Therefore, I would like to reiterate that we do not intend to seal ourselves off – this is not our goal. Moreover, I believe this would only do us harm. Meanwhile, I can say to those who are trying to do this to us that it is futile and impossible in the modern world. Some 40 or 50 years ago, this may have been possible, but not now. Clearly all such attempts will fail. And the sooner our colleagues see this, the better.

As for the growing patriotism, you compared it to the United States. Yes, this is true. Why did it happen in the United States? Why is it happening here? The reason is the same: people felt endangered. In the USA after September 11, people did not feel safe and they rallied around the country’s leadership. Meanwhile the leaders had to react in a way that would match the level of trust. I am not sure they did everything right. Now that all this time has passed since the introduction of troops into Afghanistan, there are so many losses. Now the coalition intends to pull out, while it is not clear what will happen next. You see, this is complicated. Nevertheless, this is how they reacted. That is one thing.

The second point has to do with various NGO’s and so forth. This does not mean shutting the country off at all. Why did you think so? This is self-defence. We were not the ones to adopt the foreign agents’ law. This was done in the United States where you now live, that is where this law was passed. True, they tell me now that this was done back in the thirties to protect against Nazism and propaganda. Then why haven’t you abolished it? You have not.

Moreover – and I have already mentioned this – certain participants in political activities are being questioned by the relevant US agencies. The law is still in force. We are not shutting down the NGOs that are, say, working with the United States or living off their grants, if we take the humanitarian sphere, education or healthcare. You said some educational programmes have been stopped. No, they have not. The Government has announced the implementation of one such programme only recently. I don’t know if this may have to do with some budget limitations, but nothing else.

We invite teachers to our leading universities; they even come to the Far East, and work at all our universities. We are introducing a system of so-called mega grants, when leading scholars and teachers from various universities around the world, including the United States, come to work here for months, for six or more months, forming research teams.

We are against having political activity within Russia financed from abroad. Are you trying to say this is permitted in the USA? They do not let observers even close to polling stations. The Prosecutor General threatens them with prison. They even chase away OSCE representatives, and you are telling me about democracy.

A former European leader told me, “What kind of democracy is it in the USA – you cannot even consider running in an elections if you don’t have a billion, or even several billion dollars!” What kind of democracy is that? Besides, you elect your president using a system of electoral delegates, while we have a direct democracy. Moreover, as I have said many times already, you know that the Constitution is designed in such a way that the number of electors voting for a given candidate may be greater, while the number of people they represent is smaller. Thus, the President can be elected by a minority of voters. Is this democracy? What is democracy? It is power of the people. Where is people’s power here? There is none. Meanwhile, you are trying to convince us that we don’t have it.

We certainly have our drawbacks. They apply to the system. Many of them clearly come from the past. There is a lot we need to change. We are doing it gradually, but not through revolution – I would say there were enough in the 20th century, we have had enough – but through evolution.

I am aware of the criticism of the selection system [of candidates to the posts of regional leaders] through the local bodies of power and so forth. However, this practice exists in quite a few countries that you do not find undemocratic. We pay attention and we try to fine-tune this system. We have no desire to return to our totalitarian past. This is not because we fear anything, but because this path leads to a dead end – I am certain of this, and more importantly, Russian society is sure of this. These are the instruments of a democracy; they actually vary and have to correspond to the current level of society’s development.

For instance, they have just held elections in Afghanistan. Your Secretary of State was there to organise the elections, telling them what to do during the vote count. Nonsense! Is that democracy?

I remember they told me of Afghanistan as a sample of democracy, which has come to that country. This is ridiculous. It would have been funny if it were not so sad. Therefore, we are ready for dialogue and for change.

You spoke of NGOs; many of them were ‘cased’ as we say, though they were not involved in politics. This was a mistake. This needs to be set straight.

http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/23137

[yurbud]

11. He nailed the US gov't view of the end of the Cold War:

t is my conviction that we could not take this mechanism of checks and balances that we built over the last decades, sometimes with such effort and difficulty, and simply tear it apart without building anything in its place. Otherwise we would be left with no instruments other than brute force...

***
But the United States, having declared itself the winner of the Cold War, saw no need for this. Instead of establishing a new balance of power, essential for maintaining order and stability, they took steps that threw the system into sharp and deep imbalance.

The Cold War ended, but it did not end with the signing of a peace treaty with clear and transparent agreements on respecting existing rules or creating new rules and standards. This created the impression that the so-called ‘victors’ in the Cold War had decided to pressure events and reshape the world to suit their own needs and interests. If the existing system of international relations, international law and the checks and balances in place got in the way of these aims, this system was declared worthless, outdated and in need of immediate demolition.

Pardon the analogy, but this is the way nouveaux riches behave when they suddenly end up with a great fortune, in this case, in the shape of world leadership and domination. Instead of managing their wealth wisely, for their own benefit too of course, I think they have committed many follies.

http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/23137

[nilesobek]

12. It must be embarrasing for Neo-Cons,

that Putin is much more intelligent and well spoken, even in English, than they are. These awful warmongering Neo-Cons have infiltrated the Democratic Party and cannot be trusted with leadership anymore.

It looks to me like its up to Putin to lead the world out of its current tensions because the radical right neo-cons are incapable of any gratitude, any self deprecating gestures, any humility at all. The neo-cons think they are masters of the universe and the whole world should bow down to them.

You had your chance neo-cons, now its up to the rest of the world to straighten things out, the neo-cons can ride the bench this time.

The NY Times is just following CIA instructions. They don't want the world to know that Putin is more moral and honest than the neo-cons.