Photo by Alexey Druzhinin, Agence France-Presse, Getty Images
Showing Putin speaking yesterday at the Kremlin
This past Sunday, the Russians held parliamentary elections which have been widely "condemned as fraudulent by both international and Russian observers". [2]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had previously said on the morning after the election, "The United States and many others around the world have a strong commitment to democracy and human rights. It's part of who we are. It's our values. And we expressed concerns that we thought were well founded about the conduct of the elections. And we are supportive of the rights and aspirations of the Russian people to be able to make progress and realize a better future for themselves, and we hope to see that unfold in the years ahead." [5] of the parliamentary elections, (some 32,000 people have indicted on a Facebook page that they would gather at the Kremlin).
As I read the full story in the Times it became evident that the protest movements we've been witnessing worldwide this past year starting in Tunisia and Egypt, in Madison, Wisconsin, Greece, Spain, Italy, Britain and since September 17 with Occupy Wall Street and in solidarity "Occupy" all over America, have spread and made their way to the Russian capitol.
And Putin, like strongmen everywhere, has joined the autocrats' blame game, refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of people discarding their obedient passivity and are willing to openly protest when severe injustice and official wrongdoing are being perpetrated against them in their country.
As for the White House and Secretary Clinton, the utter hypocrisy emanating from their lips i.e. "when rights are violated, we speak out" and "commitment to democracy and human rights" and "we support the rights and aspirations of the Russian people" et al, was particularly odious and more than a little hard to bear.
What about the abuses, injustices and denial of rights being foisted on the backs of 99% of the American people?
From here, it's the height of hypocrisy to be morally indignant and cast aspersions on others (even if the words have legitimacy) when YOUR OWN HOUSE is littered and strewn with immoral, unethical, illegal, torturous and un-Constitutional human rights violations that are being perpetrated on the American people as well as the innocents we kill and maim worldwide in our wars and occupations.
