News & Analysis
Is Putin Freedom's Champion or Foil for the West?
Drifting Apart Summit Underscores EU Tensions with Russia ... Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso have little affection for one another. Despite flourishing economic ties, Russia and the EU are drifting apart politically -- and neither side knows what to do about it ... The difficult relationship between the two leaders is symptomatic of something even greater. In the run-up to the Russia-EU summit this Friday in Brussels, disputes are simmering over Russia's desire for a visa-waiver for its citizens traveling to Europe, Putin's push to expand Moscow energy giant Gazprom deeper into the EU and a new tariff imposed by the Russians on imported cars. EU officials believe Russia is violating the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a body that Moscow only recently joined. In economic terms, Russia, the world's largest country by landmass, and the EU, the strongest economic bloc, are becoming ever more intertwined. Politically, however, they are drifting further apart. As reliant as each partner may be on the other, they do not appear to have joint plans together for the future. – Der Spiegel
Dominant Social Theme: Putin, a champion of liberty, fends off socialism as best he can.
Free-Market Analysis: There is a perception among a certain part of the alternative media that Russia under Vladimir Putin is a great protector of human rights and civic individualism.
This perception goes hand-in-hand with certain ideas about money – namely that the state should create money and industry should be harmonized with the needs of the state so as to produce the greatest amount of prosperity for the people.
This perspective is one that we could call "alternative media National Socialism," and we have written about it quite a bit – despite attacks on our observations from those who find themselves offended. This view is also accompanied by "great man" worship. In fact, Adolf Hitler was seen as a supporter of this approach which supposedly led to the "German Miracle" of pre-war years.
These days, despite the monetary system, Russia is looked upon by certain parts of the Western "alternative media" as the homeland of a certain kind of National Socialism and Putin himself is looked upon as a heroic neo-Hitler, standing up against the Jewish/Bolshevik forces of the West.
The meme, then, is that Putin is a heroic defender of freedom and civil liberties against the leveling ambitions of a "Jewish" power elite that is bent on world conquest. This Der Spiegel article certainly provides us with a viewpoint of Putin and Russia growing estranged from the West for various reasons.
"What happens with Russia is no less than a question of war and peace on our continent," says Frank Schauff, head of the Association of European Businesses in Brussels. Meanwhile, Zbigniew Brezinski, a former US National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, fears that Russia is fatalistically falling back into its old, anti-Western tradition. The massive country to the east is facing pressure on three sides: a growing China to the east, Muslim states in the south and a West that has often rejected Russia in recent years. For its part, given the dual debt crisis in Europe and the United States, Moscow no longer views the West as a model. The opinion within the Kremlin is that democracy is a form of government designed for wealthy states, but even there it leads to constant new economic crises because of frequent and expensive election promises.
Former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who is in no way anti-European, says he is concerned that many in his county now view "Europe as an industrial museum that is losing the war of innovation." Izvestia, a newspaper considered sympathetic to the Kremlin, swears this is "Europe's twilight." Putin himself has asked his diplomats to draft the outline for a shift towards Asia. He's had enough of being lectured about human rights like some kind of school pupil by Western leaders. In the West, meanwhile, the number of authoritarian laws that Putin has forced through the Duma, Russia's parliament, has strengthened the position of anti-Russia hawks.
The outlines of a new Cold War can be seen waiting in the proverbial wings. We are meant to believe that both China and Russia are joining forces against the West. China is a resurgent capitalist country and Russia is experiencing a strong freedom trend under Putin.
This is one dominant – or perhaps subdominant – social theme. The larger meme is simply that China and Russia are inimical to the West and not to be trusted. It is the old divide and conquer tactic all over again. The West, turning ever more fascist itself, needs overt enemies. But so do Russia and China – countries with strong authoritarian perspectives themselves.
Putin, in fact, is no angel. He runs a kind of state mafia built of KGB cronies and others that have helped him into power and kept him there. He is said to be worth some US$50 billion and his collection of palaces, planes, yachts and other items propels his lifestyle into the company of the world's richest leaders.
But such individuals must inevitably run authoritarian governments – likely no better nor worse than those now being erected in the West. To invest Russian or Chinese regimes with freedom-oriented ideologies is surely to romanticize what's going on.
Putin may indeed pose as a protector of Russian individualism and freedom but more likely he needs an external threat as much as China does – as much as the West does itself. Strong states and strong leaders always need such enemies. Seen from this perspective, Putin needs tensions with the West as much as the Western power elite needs to provide a credible portrait of forces arrayed against it.
Conclusion: George Orwell predicted this in his great book, 1984, and it would seem to be an ever more convincing scenario, from our perspective – three great fascist blocs opposing each other and locked in a perpetual struggle. The idea that Putin intends to be exempt from this brutal ménage a trios is naïve, in our humble view.
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Posted by Edgar Friendly on 12/25/12 02:05 PM
Response to dave jr
I am of a generation between the straight laced ( but covertly deviant) 50's and the free wildness era of the 60's and 70's. I was born in 1960. I was raised a catholic by a strict mother and absent father, due to mother's intolewrance of his ideas , etc. I have a rather traditional view of marriage, women , and family. I believe it is first and foremost the man (fathers) responsibility. See how the democratic national socialists used welfare and entitilement to remove fathers from the family equation in America? Se how American women embrace this? look at propaganda in early eighties with TV like Kate & Allie? ... no husbands, Dave.
It was a goal of America's communist bloc to undermine the family as the cornerstone of our society. Look at the evolotion of no fault divorce. I tell guys in failing marriages, or marriages in trouble to file for divorce, change the locks on the doors, and get a restrainig order against the wife; before she does it to you. Cite recent changes in her mental condition; nearly any pre or post menopausal woman's behavior will reflect this in court. Read "The Female Brain" by Louann Brizendane, M. D. It will open your eyes; women and men are fundametally biologically DIFFERENT; there is no sameness as feminists have brainwashed women , and men, to believe.
I see too many relationships which are actually power struggles for dominance. Look At OJ Simpson and dead Nicole; he wanted domination over her 100% puysically, metally and spiritually, he could've divorced her and had any woman he wanted; but the stuggle for dominance was more powerful for him. Women do it too, they enlist the courts and police in thier power struggles. Why do so many women squander thier reproductive abilities with men unfit for marriage? Is it because of "badboy" lust as Naomi Wolf notes in her book, "promiscuities"? or was it the communists who encourage female selfishness over a caring and nurturing role in the family?
women in the first world have been sold a bill of false goods. Many women in Ukraine accept that men and women are diffwrent and are more positively aligned towards traditional roles for men and women in the family unit. This is why they stand our , or appeal, to western men, particularly Americans and Brits.
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Posted by Edgar Friendly on 12/25/12 02:05 PM
Response to dave jr
I am of a generation between the straight laced ( but covertly deviant) 50's and the free wildness era of the 60's and 70's. I was born in 1960. I was raised a catholic by a strict mother and absent father, due to mother's intolewrance of his ideas , etc. I have a rather traditional view of marriage, women , and family. I believe it is first and foremost the man (fathers) responsibility. See how the democratic national socialists used welfare and entitilement to remove fathers from the family equation in America? Se how American women embrace this? look at propaganda in early eighties with TV like Kate & Allie? ... no husbands, Dave.
It was a goal of America's communist bloc to undermine the family as the cornerstone of our society. Look at the evolotion of no fault divorce. I tell guys in failing marriages, or marriages in trouble to file for divorce, change the locks on the doors, and get a restrainig order against the wife; before she does it to you. Cite recent changes in her mental condition; nearly any pre or post menopausal woman's behavior will reflect this in court. Read "The Female Brain" by Louann Brizendane, M. D. It will open your eyes; women and men are fundametally biologically DIFFERENT; there is no sameness as feminists have brainwashed women , and men, to believe.
I see too many relationships which are actually power struggles for dominance. Look At OJ Simpson and dead Nicole; he wanted domination over her 100% puysically, metally and spiritually, he could've divorced her and had any woman he wanted; but the stuggle for dominance was more powerful for him. Women do it too, they enlist the courts and police in thier power struggles. Why do so many women squander thier reproductive abilities with men unfi for marriage? Is it because of "badboy" lust as Naomi Wolf notes in her book, "promiscuities"? or was it the communists who encourage female selfishness over a caring and nurturing role in the family?
women in the first world have been sold a bill of false goods. Many women in Ukraine accept that men and women are diffwrent and are more positively aligned towards traditional roles for men and women in the family unit. This is why they stand our , or appeal, to western men, particularly Americans and Brits.
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Posted by Hugo_de_Groot on 12/24/12 09:44 AM
Hi DB,
Interesting take on Putin. I sure am not an expert in the so called great game. I do like to point out though that mr. Putin and mr Medvedev are quite pro gold and not pro fiat as you seem to suggest with this;
'This perception goes hand-in-hand with certain ideas about money - namely that the state should create money and industry should be harmonized with the needs of the state so as to produce the greatest amount of prosperity for the people.'
This picture illustrates it quite well; Click to view link .
The U.N itself is also pushing gold (and silver).
'UN to produce bullion coins as world currency'
'The UNCTAD Report was the first time a major multinational institution had forwarded such a suggestion or measure, although a number of countries, including Russia and Brazil have supported replacing the dollar as the world's reserve currency. China's central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan has mentioned that the dollar could become a basket of currencies instead.
The UN commission dismissed such a widening, saying a multiple-country system "may be equally unstable, and not transparent."
'A report contributor, Detlef Koffe, concluded that "Replacing the dollar with a bullion currency would solve some of the problems related to the potential of countries running large deficits and would help stability,"
'US Fed spokesperson Patrick Paulsen acknowledged that there could be some strong reaction in the US to the global currency, and that it would '…be viewed as a step toward a New World Order. But those same people have probably lost patience with the money-changers as well.'
See for example; Click to view link
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Posted by dave jr on 12/23/12 02:26 PM
Edgar, you ask a lot of questions.
"Are you actually an American woman ???" - No
"if you have an issue, look in the mirror, are you a happy person?" - While looking in the mirror, generally yes. While looking out at the world, generall no.
"do you imbrace the communist dogma of feminism?" - No, I don't like any isms.
"Are your relationships with men a struggle for dominance in the relationship?" No, I don't need to do that to my friends.
"Do you try to 'improve' your man once you are involved?" Huh? You mean my woman? - No, I did not create her, so how can I improve her?
"Are you grossly overweight?" - No, slight beer belly though.
"Are you lonely?" - Intellectually speaking? Yes.
Why all the questions? Maybe it is the social rot that is letting the marxist agenda seep into society. Maybe you should spend some moments in front of the mirror as well. Maybe it gets a start with the way we view women and the family.
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Posted by Edgar Friendly on 12/23/12 12:54 PM
response to David jr.
Dave, obviously you have a problem with part of my response to the column about Putin. I was just relating my experiences with the slavic people. Are you actually an American woman ??? if you have an issue, look in the mirror, are you a happy person? do you imbrace the communist dogma of feminism? Are your relationships with men a struggle for dominance in the relationship? Do you try to 'improve' your man once you are involved? Are you grossly overweight? Are you lonely? American is the land of overweight, mentally dumbed down masses; look at public schools, multiculturalism with common ground found at the lowest social denominator for our children and youth today; it isn't that way to my estimation in public schools in the former soviet union, from my knowledge of school organizations related to me by mothers of children attending school (Myriad choices) in Odessa, Ukraine.
Face, it , dave,,America is losing it's dominance globally because of the marxist rot, within... and this affects society on many levelsDon't get me wrong, I still love America and it's patriots ... but the marxists gotta go... sooner or later.
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Posted by Edgar Friendly on 12/23/12 12:54 PM
response to David jr.
Dave, obviously you have a problem with part of my response to the column about Putin. I was just relating my experiences with the slavic people. Are you actually an American woman ??? if you have an issue, look in the mirror, are you a happy person? do you imbrace the communist dogma of feminism? Are your relationships with men a struggle for dominance in the relationship? Do you try to 'improve' your man once you are involved? Are you grossly overweight? Are you lonely? American is the land of overweight, mentally dumbed down masses; look at public schools, multiculturalism with common ground found at the lowest social denominator for our children and youth today; it isn't that way to my estimation in public schools in the former soviet union, from my knowledge of school organizations related to me by mothers of children attending school (Myriad choices) in Odessa, Ukraine.
Face, it , dave,,America is losing it's dominance globally because of the marxist rot, within... and this affects society on many levelsDon't get me wrong, I still love America and it's patriots ... but the marxists gotta go... sooner or later.
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Posted by Lance_Dowds_1 on 12/22/12 01:59 PM
"It's called "directed history."
I'm pretty sure that when the nukes will start flying you will still be wondering if that missile "directed" at your head is also part of "directed history". Unfortunately for you, by that time it will be too late to realize the truth.
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Posted by Lance_Dowds_1 on 12/22/12 01:00 PM
@ DB
Yeah yeah yeah, I'm sure it's all just an "act" for you. The War in South Ossetia, The Nato encirclement of Russia through "color revolutions", the Missile Defense. Now I'm an expert of international political analysis like you, see? When do I get my check?
Reply from The Daily Bell
It's called "directed history." You get your check when you discover and internalize the concept ... and realize its aplicability.
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Posted by Lance_Dowds_1 on 12/22/12 11:42 AM
@ To DB
"Putin, in fact, is no angel."
Oh you don't say. I think I had suspected something. To take on the forces of evil that dominate the US and the West I wish that Putin was 10 times more ruthless than he is and could show less restraint in dealing with them.
"He runs a kind of state mafia built of KGB cronies and others that have helped him into power and kept him there... .But such individuals must inevitably run authoritarian governments"
"Mafia state"... blah blah... . "KGB cronies"... blah ... "authoritarian"... blah... blah you sound just like any other globalist/neocon mouthpiece except they display some originality with their characterizations from time to time while you have none.
@ To all the rest
Ignore the DB's clueless article and read the truth about Putin here:
Click to view link
Reply from The Daily Bell
Believing in the Holy Christ, as gloriously, mercifully and eternally unfathomable as He may be, does not necessarily endow you with faculties of international political analysis ... as we can see.
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Posted by stas on 12/22/12 11:06 AM
Mr. Vladimir Putin, the present day the leader of Russia, has lots of russian spirit within. He was , once, the KGB leutenant in the East Germany, a typical communist, but the same time he learned from he germans about the culture of civilized living. The past generations of pre-carist Russia is inbedded within the DUSHIA and you can see in his love for Russia.
He is not interested in becoming a mixed Afro-American. His goal is to be civilizaition - cultured russian and he is working to bring Russia to its pre-communist era.
He is proud to be russian. He definatly does not like Africans(blacks).
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Posted by dave jr on 12/22/12 09:31 AM
Hey Edgar, why then, don't you live among the superiors? Then you could throw away the mail order catalog. Oh, wait... all the brides want to come here. I get it.
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Posted by Edgar Friendly on 12/21/12 11:21 PM
I do not know much about high level russian politics, but I have visited St. Petersburg in 2002, and the Ukraine 7 times. Watching a young mother, outside Smolenski Cathedral, the big White and blue orthodox church with 22 ft high oak doors featured in so many calenders, making a 'snow castle' for her toddler age boy; sent me immediately back to my childhood, where my mom made sand castles at Salsbury beach , Massachusetts for me at about the same age. It brought the horrors of the cold war into razor sharpness for me. Our people are much more alike, Americans of european descent, and the slavics, than we are similar to Maoists from china or modern british marxists, certainly we are not similar to muslims, in terms of social perceptions. If we, as conservative Americans should ally ourselves with Russians/Ukrainians/slavics, from countries that are growing economically, it could be beneneficial. I recently watched 2016, Diness Desousa's film version of his book. Obama is an anti-colonialist, acording to Desouza. He seems to have a very coherant theory about Obama. Putin's image of the strong man is something like a societal DNA for these people. Alot of older people still admire Stalin, the 'strongman' they look at all the massive high rise cement building blocks as a signpost of progress for themselves as a people and culture. Putin was smuggled into church by his grandmother, despite any shortcomings this man as a world leader might have, I belive there is alot of goodness in him... we (USA) had to bail out the soviets when Regan outspent them in the cold war ... he has since been at the helm of russia and has improved the lot for many societal strata of russian people.
he is 100 times a superior national leader compared to Obama... don't get me wrong, I am not some type of Harvey Lee Osawald, but I admire the slavic peoples; on average thier woman are 100% superior physically and mentally to today's 'feminized" western women in America or Britain.
I married a younger woman from Dneopropetrovsk, Ukraine..while it did not work out, LARGELY BY INTERFERENCE; MY EX-WIFE INTERACTED WITH HERE IN AMERICA, FOUL, MIDDLE AGED jealous and mentally defective feminist types,
I would prefer to take a second chance with an Ukrainian woman at marriage than what is available to me in New England, USA.
I think the russian people are more fiercely nationalist than any of the emasculated europeans or those Americans of Marxist persuasion; at least russia has moved beyound communism, because it doesn;t work; my fellow Americans are incapable of seeing this. The prole- like control of them by the mass media over the Sandy hook school shooting incident, which is most likely 'directed history' as the Bell warns us, is something the marxist 'useful idiots' in America are blind too. Liberals all seem to be crippled by their emotional infirmaties that preclude logic and reason. Ann Coulter was correct about them in her book "demonic" I am not an expert about russia and it's leader ship but I will trust my instinct concerning russin/slavic people in general. they're slightly more moral and inteeligent than Americans in general; definitly not any worse. Enen some of the mafia types are friendly and decent towards foreigners..those I met at the St. Petersburg hotel i stayed in gave me that impression, but thier boss creeped me out.I do believe putin is a morally superior man than the globalsit sock-puppet Obama. I've even told my US senators office that if America's Alinskyite Administration pisses off Putin and he nukes Wahington D.C. /... Click to view link would be a good thing as 90% of the American people's problems would be solved in one instant! :) Ahh, to dream. The rest of the country would be better off. Oh, he could nuke Chicago too, and rid us of that nest of communists, too , (Valerie Jarret, the American commmunist party, Frank Marshall Davis, who may be Obama's real dad, at least his mentor through teen yeears, A communist party member from Chicago... yeah, kaboom Chicago wouldn't be a greatr lose to patriots, here. theorectically,,,war is terrible, but the globalists are asking for it...
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Posted by alexsemen on 12/21/12 02:04 PM
If I get the right( wich it is forbiden in de nazi West non-democracy) to choose I'll choose Putin as a leader, as long I have not other option to live in one real democracy without those parasitic, decrepit and degenerate leaders( Obama the first one).
Anyhow Putin is by far more intelligent, integer, honest, rational, logical, coherent and consequent and less ideologized then all that scum named EU-Commission of EU-Parliament or homos-sado-maoisto-parasitical BS in Bruxelles.
