generalspeaking

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Sincerest Congratulations, Vladimir!

"Putin began his long-running disinformation campaign when he came to power in 2000, taking over Russia’s independent television channels and bringing the oligarchs who owned them to heel or ousting them from the country."
"Since then, he has chipped away at free expression, political dissent, and independent voices one newspaper, one website, and one blogger at a time."
"Each new amendment to the law declaring NGOs as foreign agents and undesirables, each assassination of a journalist or political leader who went too far, and each expansion of what constitutes 'extremist' content online [and thus, subject to censorship] brought Putin one step closer to this day."
Alina Polyakova, Brookings, Monday, March 19, 2018

"Currently, the China-Russia comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership is at the best level in history, which sets an example for building a new type of international relations."
"China is willing to work with Russia to keep promoting China-Russia relations to a higher level."
Chinese President Xi Jinping

An election billboard in Novosibirsk, Siberia's largest city CNN

Amazing, how much China and Russia and their respective presidents have in common. Each plotted carefully from the day Xi and Putin came to power, to manipulate their nations' constitutions to enable them to retain their respective presidencies ad infinitum. Xi is the undisputed ruler of China after his unanimous reappointment to the Chinese presidency earlier this month, just as Putin is the president-forever of Russia after a vast majority of Russian 'voters' gave him the gift he has long awaited.

Each has reaped the reluctant recognition that comes with such coups; other world leaders who would never dream of usurping democratic rule in such an obvious display of genteel tyranny, and fearing the raw power now installed within both of these coups, betray themselves and their fears by the practise of realpolitik that has them endowing their unfettered congratulations to these dictatorship- lottery-winners with the endorsement craved by Xi and Putin, but extraneous to their 'legitimacy'.

The mayor of Yekaterinburg, Yevgeny Roizman, should mind his Ps and Qs for possible offence leading to retribution, having spoken to The Associated Press, describing the orders received by local officials and state employees "from higher up" to ensure an impressive 60 percent turnout for the presidential vote. First-time voters were introduced to the reality of managed democracy through the presentation of free pop concert tickets as rewards for being good citizens.

Vladimir V. Putin cast his own ballot in Moscow and he certainly did not vote for his major political rival, Alexei Navalny, having decided not to have him shot dead by a sharpshooter in a public square, that it would be enough to steer Russian justice in the direction of finding him guilty of fraud thus removing him as a presidential candidate. "The program that I propose for the country is the right one", he declared at the voting station, anticipating a major victory.

Mr. Putin's popularity resonates with Russians who like their leaders tough and belligerent. It took both to wrest the Crimea from Ukraine and send those little 'green men' to fight alongside ethnic Russian Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine to restore its status as a satellite. No amount of pain from sanctions could possibly deter Putin from his grand plan of extending the Russian Federation's octopus arms into eastern Europe and across the Middle East. Supporting the Syrian regime killing its citizens with chemical weapons doesn't faze Putin; he can always go the Syrians one better.

And what will the United Kingdom resort to, to punish Moscow? Didn't they gulp when they saw those giant screens with their nemesis showing off the latest nuclear arms the Kremlin now boasts of, superior to anything currently in the arsenals of Western military resources? According to the Central Election Commission, with returns tallied to date, Putin 'won' 72 percent of the vote. And countries fearful of the strength and power and volatility of this man are constrained to bow and scrape.

And they do.

Labels: Presidency, Russia, Vladimir Putin

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generalspeaking

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Sincerest Congratulations, Vladimir!

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