Is Vladimir Putin Weaker Than He Wants to Appear?

Not all Russians view Putin as their new Tsar.

While Vladimir Putin appears to have dealt a major blow against the United States by succeeding in placing an unfit narcissist in the White House who is rapidly harming America's standing around the globe, as a piece in the Washington Post lays out, Putin has his own problems at home, especially as the Russian economy continues to leave many behind and much of the populace tires of the corruption and misrule.  Putin may not be ready to be overthrown anytime soon, but it would appear that democratic forces in Russia are growing, particularly at the local level where opposition politicians are being elected to office.  Should the trend continue, Putin may find less time for foreign adventures.  Here are article highlights:

Vladi­mir Putin’s grim, businesslike inauguration to a fourth term as Russian president last week was accompanied by equally grim commentaries about his grip on the country. He may have stolen the election, it was said, but the vast majority of Russians support him and his regime. He may have eliminated all serious opposition, through prohibitions, imprisonment and the occasional murder, but his country is unsuited for democracy anyway.

There’s a tiresome illogic to such stuff: If 80 percent of voters support you, why not let your main opponent compete, and prove it? If Russians are really content with political serfdom, why did tens of thousands of them take to the streets of more than 60 cities two days before the inauguration, carrying signs saying things such as “Putin is not our Tsar”?

How refreshing, then, to meet the group of Russians who appeared in Washington last week, shortly after Putin’s swearing-in: opposition activists who are not just protesting but also organizing grass-roots movements in and around Moscow — and who delivered a small but startling rebuff to the Kremlin a few months ago. Theirs is a more realistic, grounded view of Putin’s Russia, which is a place where discontent is growing, the desire for civil rights is tangible and the prospect of democratic change is, in the longer term, real. [T]hings can change very fast if there is a real opposition,” said Natalia Shavshukova, a former municipal council member who now trains local politicians. Her proof? In the municipal elections in the Moscow region in September, independent candidates won 260 of about 1,500 seats, compared with 30 in the previous election. One of the districts lost by the government was the Moscow area including the Kremlin. . . . a real democratic election? In Putin’s Russia? It turns out they can still happen on the local level, largely because the regime lacks the resources to suppress independent candidates or steal votes in every municipal council. In that space, grass-roots movements have sprung up: People angry about toxic garbage dumps, a destructive urban renewal plan or local corruption are banding together, finding candidates and getting them elected, using the mostly empty shells of legally tolerated political parties as their vehicles.

What the emerging local movements show, though, is that if Putin is seeking to create a model of 21st-century authoritarian government in Russia, he’s not succeeding. His regime consists of a centralized, mafia-like clique that controls the military, security services, state television and a number of big companies but — unlike in the Soviet era — not everything. Wherever it retreats — and under mounting economic pressure, the regime is retreating — an independent civil society springs up. 

Though they don’t get much attention, popular protests are slowly growing around Russia. They are triggered by the abuses and disasters of a failing government — such as theshopping-mall fire that killed 64 people in the Siberian city of Kemerovo in March, or the landfill emitting toxic fumes in the Moscow suburb of Volokolamsk last month.

But what seems clear in talking to these Russian organizers is that Putin, the putative all-powerful ruler, will not control the timing. “For many people, Putin is simply a symbol of great Russia,” said Galiamina. “Our goal is to show people the connection between local problems, their lives and federal policies. But it’s a very long-term goal. For now, we have to show them that politics exists.”

Putin is Trapped by His Strident Anti-Western Rhetoric

As an article in The Economist notes, Vladimir "Adolph Hitler Want to Be" Putin has put himself in a bit of a boxed in situation.  He has made endless strident attacks on western nations as he tries to divert the attention of average Russians from his failed economic policies which have allowed his cronies to rape the Russian people.  Yet increased bellicose behavior could lead to war and Russia is not in an economic position for such an ill-advised adventure.  If Putin likes to see himself as a modern day Tsar, he needs to remember what war brought down on Nicholas II when Russia faced an economically far superior foe, i.e. Germany.  Here are excerpts that look at how Putin may have outsmarted himself:

A RELATIVE hiatus in the fighting in eastern Ukraine (at least until this week) and a relative stabilisation in the Russian economy are prompting two questions. Is the worst of the war over and might better economic news calm the Kremlin—or is this a lull before a new storm?

The economic situation is not as bad as many predicted four months ago. Having lost half its value, the rouble has stabilised and even started to strengthen, thanks in part to a recent rise in oil prices. Inflation is running at 17% but is rising more slowly than many feared. Instead of a 5% contraction, the economy may shrink by only 3% this year. “The situation is not as catastrophic as many people thought,” is how a senior Russia banker sums up the mood.    

Yet the fragile economic balance is not being used by Vladimir Putin as an argument for returning to peace and prosperity, but rather as evidence that he is standing strong against Russia’s adversaries. The state media have trumpeted the strengthening of the rouble against the dollar and the euro as a victory in the face of American and European enemies determined to ruin Russia.

The Kremlin’s narrative of war has long moved beyond Ukraine to the West in general. The claim that their country is at war may be news to Americans, but it has been drilled into the minds of many ordinary Russians. The prospect of a war with the West is now a big concern for public opinion. Some 81% of the population sees America as a threat, the highest proportion since the Soviet Union fell apart.

According to this narrative, Russia is under attack on all fronts—economic, ideological, Middle Eastern, European—and must respond accordingly.
In this world of mirror images, America serves as Russia’s reflection and alter ego. It ascribes to America its own actions: incitement of violence in Kiev, support of extreme nationalists in eastern Ukraine, military involvement in the conflict.  

What are Russia’s motives and goals in this confrontation, and is it now trapped in a spiral of aggression? Russian officials talk obsessively of geopolitics, but the answers depend not on what the West does but on how the Kremlin calculates its risks at home, since staying in power is its main goal. A study commissioned by Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister, and conducted by a group of Russian sociologists led by Mikhail Dmitriev of the New Economic Growth, a think-tank, suggests that the roots of Mr Putin’s actions in Ukraine lie in the Kremlin’s need to solidify its legitimacy after the growing discontent that erupted into street protests during the winter of 2011-12.

Those protests were driven mainly by Russia’s middle class, frustrated by its lack of prospects. After a decade of rapid income growth that boosted living standards, priorities shifted to such aspirations as better justice, education and health care that Mr Putin’s regime of crony state capitalism could not provide. . . . . The protests in Russia’s larger cities started to resonate with economic and social discontent in poorer provinces, and risked erupting into an open social conflict. 

Russia’s annexation of Crimea arrested this trend. Alexei Navalny, a leader of the protests of 2011-12 who memorably named Mr Putin’s United Russia a party of crooks and thieves, says that the president has hijacked the political agenda by substituting imperial nationalism for building a modern state.

The Kremlin can ill afford a real military clash with the West, but it will claim any signs of Western weakness as victories. To demonstrate its strength, it is brandishing its nuclear arms and flexing its muscles all around NATO’s borders. Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a think-tank, says Mr Putin wants his nuclear threats taken seriously, and adds that the risk of nuclear war is greater than at any time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. But the immediate goal of such intimidation is to persuade the West to drop sanctions, which would be presented at home as a huge victory.

Against this background a resolution of the Ukrainian crisis and de-escalation of tensions with the West would push the focus back onto economic and social problems, lowering Mr Putin’s ratings, just as happened after Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008. A continuation of the war in Ukraine and the stand-off with the West will keep his ratings up for longer. But while this may benefit Mr Putin, it risks leaving Russia isolated and economically stagnant.

Russia’s budget cuts are a good guide to Mr Putin’s priorities. The upkeep of the Kremlin and spending on the army and security services take 40% of the entire budget. But spending on health care and infrastructure has been reduced twice as much as spending on defence. Among other winners in the budget are the state media which spew out hatred and aggression.

[T]the mood could one day switch from an external enemy back to Mr Putin himself, not least because the image of America constructed by the Kremlin’s propaganda bears such a close resemblance to the reality of Russia.

The best thing for Russia would be the over throw of Putin - of an assassin's bullet providing the same end result.  The man is a menace and the Russian people need to remove him one way or another.  The ruin that Hitler brought to Germany could be like that which Putin could bring to Russia.  The Russian people deserve much better than that.

Children Murdered After Deportation by United States

As sadly seems to always be the case with today's GOP and even more so its Christofascists/white supremacist base, objective facts, the truth and often basic decency do not matter.  Their entire agenda lies based on greed, a desire to force their sick religious beliefs on all, and a hatred of anyone who doesn't have lily white skin.  Thus, the GOP base and its elected whores deny that children flocking to America's southern borders are doing so often literally fear for their lives.  To these Republicans and the "godly Christians" the lives of these children simply do not matter why?  Because they aren't white.  Think Progress looks at the fate of some of the children deported by the United States.  Here are highlights:

Between five and ten migrant children have been killed since February after the United States deported them back to Honduras, a morgue director told the Los Angeles Times. Lawmakers have yet to come up with best practices to deal with the waves of unaccompanied children apprehended by Border Patrol agents, but some politicians refute claims that children are fleeing violence and are opting instead to fund legislation that would fast-track their deportations. 

San Pedro Sula morgue director Hector Hernandez told the Los Angeles Times that his morgue has taken in 42 dead children since February. According to an interview with relatives by the LA Times, one teenager was shot dead hours after getting deported. Last year, San Pedro Sula saw 187 killings for every 100,000 residents, a statistic that has given the city the gruesome distinction as the murder capital of the world. That distinction has also been backed up by an U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency infographic, which found that many Honduran children are on the run from extremely violent regions “where they probably perceive the risk of traveling alone to the U.S. preferable to remaining at home.” Hugo Ramon Maldonado of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras believes that about 80 percent of Hondurans making the exodus are fleeing crime or violence. 

Politicians like Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) have been keen on expediting the legal process by demanding that immigration judges make a court decision within seven days. But that move could undermine children’s rights by denying due process to children who already don’t understand the courtroom procedures. As Vox found out, one teenage girl told a border agent that she was afraid of being forced into prostitution only after her paperwork had been filed.

According to a United Nations report, at least 58 percent of the children cited “international protection needs” as in they were seeking protection from the international community because their home governments could no longer protect them.

What is fueling the violence in Central America?  Mostly the drug trade which is fueled by America's failed "war on drugs" that makes drug trafficking so lucrative and in the process encourages lawless gangs and drug lords. Add to that corrupt and incompetent governments and the poisonous mix is complete. 

Scott Walker Joins List of GOP Governors Under Criminal Investigation

There was a time not too long ago when Bob McDonnell of Virginia, Chris Christie of New Jersey and Scott Walker of Wisconsin were all touted as the up and coming, potential presidential candidates for the Republican Party.  Now, McDonnell is under federal indictment and an upcoming trial, Chris Christie is under investigation for "Bridge Gate" and Walker is now perhaps facing a criminal investigation as well.  One thing that all three of these men have in common is insufferable arrogance and an apparent view that they are above the law and how they hold average Americans in contempt.  The New York Times looks at Walker's situation in a main page editorial.  Here are excerpts:

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy promised in 2010 that there was nothing to fear from independent spending groups that raised unlimited dollars. Because they could not coordinate with political candidates, he wrote in the Citizens United decision, they “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

In the years since that disastrous opinion, politicians around the country have set out to prove Justice Kennedy wrong by stealthily working with the “independent” groups that raise money on their behalf. The latest to get caught doing so is Gov. Scott Walker, Republican of Wisconsin. According to state prosecutors, he was at the helm of a broad and illegal fund-raising effort that involved coordinating with outside spending groups and even controlling them.

Email messages and other documents released on Thursday as part of a Wisconsin lawsuit show that Mr. Walker and his top aides raised money for the local chapter of Club for Growth, one of the outside groups helping Mr. Walker fend off a 2012 recall attempt at the polls. They then directed that millions of dollars raised by the Club for Growth be transferred to other groups that ran ads in support of Mr. Walker and of Republicans who were the subject of State Senate recall elections in 2011. The groups also ran absentee-ballot drives in some of the recalls.

On the national level, campaigns figure they can get away with it because the Federal Election Commission is largely toothless. That’s why it is important that prosecutors like the ones in Wisconsin aggressively pursue violations of similar state laws against coordination with outside groups. In the Walker case, a federal judge and a state judge have, disappointingly, already agreed with the governor’s argument that the “issue ads” were not political, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is reviewing the case and may let the prosecutors proceed with their investigation.

If the rules against coordination are lifted, wealthy donors will achieve their dream of donating unlimited millions directly to candidates. The Walker case shows how important it is for government at all levels — Congress, federal agencies and state officials — to put severe curbs on the ability of outside groups to meddle in politics with unlimited dollars.

A Spotlight on Mr. Putin’s Russia

With the 2014 Winter Games officially beginning today, it is timely to take a serious look at Vladimir Putin's Russia which behind the attempted glitz in Sochi is a country that is perhaps more repressive today than it was under the Tsars and where those supposedly governing for the benefit of the Russian people have taken corruption to levels not even dreamed of under Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra.  It is not a pretty picture and it is downright saddening that the Russian People have been once again betrayed by their rulers.  An editorial in the New York Times looks at Putin's Russia and it is not pretty.  Here are excerpts:

The Olympic Games that open in Sochi, Russia, on Friday are intended to be the fulfillment of President Vladimir Putin’s quest for prestige and power on the world stage. But the reality of Mr. Putin and the Russia he leads conflicts starkly with Olympic ideals and fundamental human rights. There is no way to ignore the dark side — the soul-crushing repression, the cruel new antigay and blasphemy laws and the corrupt legal system in which political dissidents are sentenced to lengthy terms on false charges.

Maria Alyokhina, 25, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, of Pussy Riot, the Russian punk band, are determined that the glossy celebration of the Olympics will not whitewash the reality of Mr. Putin’s Russia, which they know from experience. Charged with “hooliganism,” they were incarcerated for 21 months for performing an anti-Putin song on the altar of a Moscow cathedral that cast the Russian Orthodox Church as a tool of the state. 

Such political protest is not tolerated in a nation that is a long way from a democracy. In December, the women were freed under a new amnesty law that was an attempt by Mr. Putin to soften his authoritarian image before the Olympics. 

But if he thought releasing the two women from prison would silence them, he miscalculated badly. On Wednesday, they told The Times’s editorial board that their imprisonment, and the international support it rallied to their cause, had emboldened them. They plan to keep criticizing Mr. Putin — they were hilarious on Stephen Colbert’s show the night before — and working for prison and judicial reform. Their resolve and strength of character are inspiring. There is a lot of work to do . . . 

Ms. Alyokhina and Ms. Tolokonnikova have called for a boycott of the Olympics, or other protests, to pressure the government into freeing the defendants. The most important thing is that the world speak out now, while Mr. Putin is at the center of attention and presumably cares what it thinks.

More broadly, the Russian penal system is in desperate need of reform. The activists described conditions in which prisoners are cowed into “obedient slaves,” forced to work up to 20 hours a day, with food that is little better than refuse. Those who are considered troublemakers can be forced to stand outdoors for hours, regardless of the weather; prohibited from using the bathroom; or beaten.

The Olympics cannot but put a spotlight on the host country, and despite all efforts to create a more pleasant image of his state, Mr. Putin is facing a growing protest. On Wednesday, more than 200 prominent international authors, including Günter Grass, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Franzen, published a letter denouncing the “chokehold” they said the new antigay and blasphemy laws place on freedom of expression.

Mr. Putin has unconstrained power to put anyone associated with Pussy Riot and thousands of other political activists in prison. But these women and those who share their commitment to freedom and justice are unlikely to be silenced, and they offer Russia a much better future.

The irony is that but for the Bolshevik revolution, Russia might be a far better place for its people today.  Before the revolution, Russia was industrializing and modernizing faster than any other country and, indeed, did not regain its 1913 industrial out put until the eve of World War II.  And let's not forget that perhaps as many as 14 million Russian died during the revolution and brutal civil was that followed.  The Russian people deserve far better than Vladimir Putin.

 

Russia: The Rest of the Story Behind the Anti-Gay Laws

In the early 1930's, Germany's economy was a disaster with soaring inflation and economic instability.  Circumstances that helped set the stage for Hitler's rise to power and the scapegoating of the Jews to distract public attention from the failings of the government.  In today's Russia we see a similar picture: government corruption (Putin and his cronies are thought to be looting the country), a flagging economy, decreases in life expectancy and birthrate.  Someone needs to be blamed and something is needed to distract the attention of the public that ultimately it is Putin and his government who are to blame.  Hence, just as Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws,  we have seen Russia enacting anti-gay laws to target a minority for the foes of Russian society.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the perils of being a business owner in Putin's Russia (where opposition to Putin's regime can lead to charges of "economic crimes") and some of Putin's efforts to save his own ass and retain power.  Here are excerpts:

A business owner in Russia has a better chance of ending up in the penal colony system once known as the gulag than a common burglar does.  

More than 110,000 people are serving time for what Russia calls “economic crimes,” out of a population of about three million self-employed people and owners of small and medium-size businesses. An additional 2,500 are in jails awaiting trial for this class of crimes that includes fraud, but can also include embezzlement, counterfeiting and tax evasion.

But with the Russian economy languishing, President Vladimir V. Putin has devised a plan for turning things around: offer amnesty to some of the imprisoned business people. 

The amnesty is needed, he said, because the government had “overreacted” to the threat of organized crime and the inequities of privatization and over-prosecuted entrepreneurs during Mr. Putin’s first 12 years in power as president and prime minister. 

Russia’s economy does need help. In the first quarter, growth fell to a rate of 1.6 percent because oil prices are level. And in that economic climate, few Russians seem willing to risk opening a new business that might create jobs and tax revenue for the government. 

In 2010, the police investigated a total of 276,435 “economic crimes,” according to the Russian prosecutor general’s office, whose statistics show burglary and robbery are prosecuted less than economic crimes. 

So many Russian business owners are doing time that support groups have sprung up in Moscow for their families known as “The 159 Society.” It takes its name from the article on fraud in the criminal code. Rus Sidyashchaya, or Russia Behind Bars, organizes weekly dinners for the wives of imprisoned businessmen. 

Russia’s infamous penal colonies, rural camps swirled in barbed wire, appear today much as they did when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote “The Gulag Archipelago” in the 1960s. But at least one of every 10 prisoners today is a white-collar convict.

One of those Mr. Titov championed was Ruslan V. Tyelkov, whose short arc from businessman to inmate illustrates both the entrepreneurial spirit that still simmers in Russia and the risks.  . . . In 2010, Mr. Tyelkov spent the equivalent of $31,000 for 25,000 yards of Chinese-made leopard-print fabric suitable for chairs and sofas. “It’s very popular here, not only for furniture but cloths, wallpaper, sheets, shoes, bags, everything.” 

With no warning, the police arrived at his warehouses and removed every roll on six flatbed trucks, handing it over to a competitor, ostensibly for storage, though it was later sold. Then they arrested Mr. Tyelkov, who spent a year in pretrial detention. 

The crime? The police said they suspected copyright infringement of the leopard design. “It was funny at first,” recalled Mr. Tyelkov of his initial meeting with the police. “I asked, ‘Who owns the copyright, a leopard?’ ”  Mr. Titov’s later investigation confirmed the police had colluded with a competitor to seize the merchandise under the pretext of a criminal case, so it could be sold for a profit. 

In Russia, the police benefit from arrests. They profit by soliciting a bribe from a rival to remove competition, by taking money from the family for release, or by selling seized goods. Promotion depends on an informal quota of arrests. Police officers who seize businesses became common enough to have earned the nickname “werewolves in epaulets.”  

Yes, it sounds like what Hitler and his SA did in the 1930's.  Businesses could be destroyed and fortunes lost based on the whims of Nazi officials and cronies.   Putin and his regime govern in a similar mode and if Putin was serious about improving Russia, he'd be dealing with the widespread corruption.  Instead he's persecuting gays.  It speaks volumes about the man and none of it is good.  As for the rest of the world, we don't seem to ever learn from history.