11. The 1996 presidential election in Russia. The US-imposed "shock therapy" caused millions of of people economic hardships. It looked like the Communist Party would win the election. The authors write that with the help of the newly created oligarchs [Kremlin insiders who highjacked state property during the transition and became millionaires and billionaires almost overnight] and the IMF (International Money Fund; i.e., the US) Yeltsin was able "to eke out a victory." [The authors don't mention that during the vote count the trend was indicating the Communists were winning and the count was stopped for 24 hours due to computer "malfunction." When the count resumed Yeltsin was ahead. This was the Russian introduction to "democracy American style."]
12. New Year's 1996. Yeltsin resigns and apologizes for the mess the transition to capitalism has caused.
13. Yeltsin then appointed Vladimir Putin "his successor." The people running the Russian government had decided Putin was the most capable person to handle the problems they were encountering or, in the neutral terminology of objective New Yorker journalism, he had proved himself "loyal to his bosses."
14. Putin, as did Ford with Nixon, arranged that Yeltsin would not be prosecuted in the future for any crimes committed while he was in office. Off to good start. Andrei Kozyrev, a representative of the kleptocracy and oligarchic takeover of the Soviet economy under Yeltsin as foreign minister 1990-96, says Putin finalized a reconsolidation of the "old order." This is nonsense as that would entail the resocialization of the economy and the Communist Party's return to power, which was prevented by the rigging of 1996 election. Kozyrev said, "the inability to complete the economic and political reforms" caused Russia to slip back "into confrontation with the West and NATO." In other words, the breaking of the promise not to expand NATO to the Russian border wasn't the cause of the confrontation but Putin's stopping the virtual give-away of the the economy to the oligarchs and his making economic reforms that befitted the majority of the Russian people instead of the Yeltsin clique that allied itself with the West and US "shock therapy" was the cause. It's all Putin's fault.
15. When Putin took over he found a "barely functional state." He replaced Yeltsin loyalists with his own people and brought "every aspect of the country's political life, including the media" under "the 'Vertical of power' that he constructed." This is a ridiculous overstatement as there is a large and active Communist Party in Russia with its own press and there are still independent papers and journalists at work in the Russian Federation even if television has been brought under state supervision. Putin has many authoritarian tendencies but they pale in comparison with those of some US NATO allies such as Turkey.
16. When first in office, Putin tried to be friendly with the West.
17. Bush then invaded Iraq [on trumped-up charges revealing an aggressive warlike US]. in 2007 Putin stated the US has "overstepped its national borders in every area." He also claimed the expansion of NATO was directed at Russia. Robert Gates reported, re Putin's claim, "people were inclined to pass it off as a one-off." [Ignoring Russia's concerns and not taking them seriously was bound to have negative reactions; it was the typical behavior of big-power arrogance.]
18. Many speculations on Putin's inner mental states, intentions, etc., but the facts are: In 2012 he became president for the third time. Marxism-Leninism was no longer the state doctrine. Putin began appealing to Russian nationalism, traditional patriotism, and longstanding Russian moral and ethical customs, some of which predated the Communists. [The authors fail to mention his promotion of the reactionary Russian Orthodox church, the seat of some horrible, backward disgusting "values" such as misogyny, intolerance, and sexual phobias.] His restrictions on gay rights was a ploy for popular support from the unenlightened masses [sadly, it was supported by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which displayed inexcusable backwardness on this issue.]
19. Putin has rejected as official policy the atheism of the Soviet state. He supports what he calls "Christian" values, which form the basis of Western civilization. [Whether supporting "Christian" values, Christians can't seem to agree on what they are, is the same as being a "Christian" is questionable.]
20. A very long paragraph full of all kinds of absurd postulations, mostly about what was going on in Putin's mind in relation to Obama's "embrace" of the "uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt." In fact the US was a long-time supporter of both dictators and was lukewarm at best when confronted with their overthrow. Putin condemned the failure of "his prote'ge'" President Medvedev (Putin was PM at the time after two terms, as president, sitting out a term so he would eligible to run for a third term) for not vetoing a US UN resolution authorizing military intervention in Libya. [It does not appear that Putin was the all-powerful authoritarian this article tries to portray: he can't even get his "prote'ge'" to follow his script!] The authors then quote an independent Russian, journalist, Mikhail Zygar, who amazingly knows what Putin "absorbed" regarding the violent end of Qaddafi. The lesson he learned was that when Qaddafi was a "pariah" (i.e., seen as anti-Western) he was "safe", but when he tried to be more accommodating to the US and its allies he was killed like a dog by a mob. We have gone from bad journalism to low fiction. Putin is not a middle-eastern dictator nor is the Russian Federation Libya. Putin is not standing up to the US and NATO because he fears a howling mob of Muscovites will drag him out of the Kremlin and summarily dispatch him. Neither Zygar nor the authors have any idea what Putin "absorbed" beyond a possible contempt for Western diplomatic hypocrisy that he probably had learned anyway many years ago.
21. Another long paragraph about Putin's reservations concerning US policies (labeled by the authors as "grievances against the West" -- they often use the term "West" when they refer to US-government policies). As usual the assessments of Putin's inner mental states are provided by either anti-Putin Russians or US government officials. In this paragraph we get the opinions of Obama's former national security advisor, Tom Donilon. He tells us Putin thought the anti-government demonstrations of 2011 were a prelude supported by foreigners to weaken or get rid of him. In Donilon's opinion Putin became more actively hostile against the US and the West. This is illustrated by the fact that Obama cancelled a summit meeting with Putin because Russia, which has no mutual-extradition treaty with the US, refused to hand over Edward Snowden to the tender mercies of the the US "justice" system. In other words, if you don't follow American demands you are "hostile." Donilon also remarks that Putin "works with" a small group of advisors who are former intelligence officials. So what?
22. We are told that in Russia dissent is "marginalized," opposition candidates are not treated fairly, and so-called human-rights groups funded "from abroad" have to be registered as "foreign agents." Russian television media [like our own] tends to reflect official government views.
23. In Putin's Russia we find out prison camps are not filled with his enemies, but he has made a few "chilling" examples [as has the US]. Russian TV, as described in the article, looks a lot like American TV. Comparing the description of the Russian mass media to that given by Bernie Sanders in his book "Our Revolution", one doesn't see much difference. The ruling elites in both countries pretty much dominate what the masses watch, but there are outlets for critical views on Facebook and Web sites, and oppositional magazines and books are available.
The authors point out that "even" in the internet age more that 80% of Russians get their news from TV [the corresponding number of Americans is 90% according the Sanders]. The authors also assert that Putin's popularity ratings are the result of "manipulation" of TV coverage (it's a "crucial factor"). [Didn't American TV go out of the way to give coverage to Trump to boost their ratings and profits while basically ignoring Bernie Sanders -- no manipulation of coverage there!] I'm beginning to think Rupert Murdoch is a secret partner of The New Yorkers' parent company (Conde' Nast, a subsidiary of Advance Publications).
24. On Putin's 60th birthday (2012) Russian TV ran a flattering documentary about him and a TV commentator favorably compared him to Stalin. [For reasons non-Russians in the West don't understand Stalin is still fairly popular with many Russians and others in the former Soviet Union and many millions of peasants and working people in the Third World.] The authors also repeat, without any evidence, the allegations made by some "well-informed critics" that Putin is worth "tens of billions of dollars." It seems that any comment by Putin's critics, as long as it is negative, has its place in this article.
25. Masha Lipman, editor of "Counterpoint", criticizes Russian TV's coverage of Putin as, in her bitter opinion,"not just the ultimate boss but the embodiment of Russian statehood."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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