And by the way Mr. President, did you know bears eat people?
Here is a glimpse into recent history:
And most educated people know we do not have a true democracy, yet that isn’t what Putin is trying to say, he is trying to cut off our exceptionalism by denying what makes us great by deflecting.
Some notes from Wikipedia:
1990–1996: Saint Petersburg administration
Vladimir Putin, Lyudmila Narusovaand Ksenia Sobchak at the funeral of Putin’s former mentor[51] Anatoly Sobchak, Mayor of Saint Petersburg (1990–1996).
In May 1990, Putin was appointed as an advisor on international affairs to the Mayor of Leningrad Anatoly Sobchak. On 28 June 1991, he became head of the Committee for External Relations of the Mayor’s Office, with responsibility for promoting international relations and foreign investments[52] and registering business ventures. Within a year, Putin was investigated by the city legislative council led by Marina Salye. It was concluded that he had understated prices and permitted the export of metals valued at $93 million in exchange for foreign food aid that never arrived.[53][54] Despite the investigators’ recommendation that Putin be fired, Putin remained head of the Committee for External Relations until 1996.[55][56] From 1994 to 1996, he held several other political and governmental positions in Saint Petersburg.[57]
See the above dates when he started in public administration, yet by he states he did not leave the KGB until August of 1991. He was still a Soviet agent when he began his political career. And the hint of corruption is undeniable. Where was the foreign food aid suppose to have originated?
Notes from Early Moscow section:
On 26 March 1997, President Boris Yeltsin appointed Putin deputy chief of Presidential Staff, which he remained until May 1998, and chief of the Main Control Directorate of the Presidential Property Management Department (until June 1998). His predecessor on this position was Alexei Kudrin And the successor was Nikolai Patrushev, both future prominent politicians and Putin’s associates.[40]
Here is an interesting article on Alexei Kudrinand:
The above says much.
And here is some info on Nikolai Patrushev from Wikipedia:
Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev (Russian: Никола́й Плато́нович Па́трушев) (born 11 July 1951) is a Russian politician and security and intelligence officer. He served as Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is the main successor organization to the Soviet KGB (excluding foreign intelligence), from 1999 to 2008, and he has been Secretary of the Security Council of Russia since 2008.[1][2]
b) On 25 May 1998, Putin was appointed First Deputy Chief of Presidential Staff for regions, replacing Viktoriya Mitina; and, on 15 July, he was appointed head of the commission for the preparation of agreements on the delimitation of power of regions and the federal center attached to the president, replacing Sergey Shakhray. After Putin’s appointment, the commission completed no such agreements, although during Shakhray’s term as the Head of the Commission 46 agreements were signed.[63] Later, after becoming president, Putin canceled all those agreements.[40]
c) On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed Putin as Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the primary intelligence and security organization of the Russian Federation and the successor to the KGB.[64]
These are just a couple of examples, Putin has worked with the same people all along. They are all close to him and what he wants to achieve.
Some notes from his first presidency 2000-2004
Between 2000 and 2004, Putin set about the reconstruction of the impoverished condition of the country, apparently winning a power-struggle with the Russian oligarchs, reaching a ‘grand bargain’ with them. This bargain allowed the oligarchs to maintain most of their powers, in exchange for their explicit support for—and alignment with—Putin’s government.[80][81] A new group of business magnates emerged, including Gennady Timchenko, Vladimir Yakunin, Yury Kovalchuk, and Sergey Chemezov, with close personal ties to Putin.
A few months before elections, Putin fired Prime Minister Kasyanov’s cabinet, and appointed Mikhail Fradkov to his place. Sergey Ivanov became the first civilian in Russia to be appointed to the Defense Minister position.
Sergey Chemezov is CEO of Rostec Corporation (formerly the Director General of Rosoboronexport), chairman of the Union of Russian Mechanical Engineers, and a lieutenant-general. So why are economic leaders also in Putin’s Russia military leaders?
Many of the names in the two paragraphs listed above are under the sanctions imposed by the West after Crimea. Here is a link to an article that states has the full list of Russians under sanction. Quite impressive list:
As you can see Putin has much at stake in trying to get friendly with someone in the West. And Putin began consolidating power before his first Presidency. The people listed are major players in Putin’s Russia.
Notes on the second presidency:
The continued criminal prosecution of Russia’s then richest man, President of Yukos oil and gas company Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for fraud and tax evasionwas seen by the international press as a retaliation for Khodorkovsky’s donations to both liberal and communist opponents of the Kremlin.[citation needed] The government said that Khodorkovsky was “corrupting” a large segment of the Duma to prevent changes to the tax code.[citation needed] Khodorkovsky was arrested, Yukos was bankrupted and the company’s assets were auctioned at below-market value, with the largest share acquired by the state company Rosneft.[96] The fate of Yukos was seen as a sign of a broader shift of Russia towards a system of state capitalism.[97][98] This was underscored in July 2014 when shareholders of Yukos were awarded $50 billion in compensation by the Permanent Arbitration Court in The Hague.[99]
On 7 October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who exposed corruption in the Russian army and its conduct in Chechnya, was shot in the lobby of her apartment building, on Putin’s birthday. The death of Politkovskaya triggered international criticism, with accusations that Putin has failed to protect the country’s new independent media.[100][101] Putin himself said that her death caused the government more problems than her writings.[102]
On a more complementary note:
In December 2007, United Russia won 64.24% of the popular vote in their run for State Duma according to election preliminary results.[106] United Russia’s victory in the December 2007 elections was seen by many as an indication of strong popular support of the then Russian leadership and its policies.[107][108]
Yet:
Putin was barred from a third term by the Constitution. First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was elected his successor. In a power-switching operation on 8 May 2008, only a day after handing the presidency to Medvedev, Putin was appointed Prime Minister of Russia, maintaining his political dominance.[109]
(Trump recently made comments appreciating China’s President being voted President for Life; a dangerous attitude for someone who is sworn to protect our Constitution)
At the United Russia Congress in Moscow on 24 September 2011, Medvedev officially proposed that Putin stand for the Presidency in 2012, an offer Putin accepted. Given United Russia’s near-total dominance of Russian politics, many observers believed that Putin was assured of a third term. The move was expected to see Medvedev stand on the United Russia ticket in the parliamentary elections in December, with a goal of becoming Prime Minister at the end of his presidential term.[110]
After the parliamentary elections on 4 December 2011, tens of thousands of Russians engaged in protests against alleged electoral fraud, the largest protests in Putin’s time. Protesters criticized Putin and United Russia and demanded annulment of the election results.[111] Those protests sparked the fear of a colour revolution in society.[112][113][114] Putin allegedly organized a number of paramilitary groups loyal to himself and to the United Russia party in the period between 2005 and 2012.[115]
And Putin was elected to a third term.
On 4 March 2012, Putin won the 2012 Russian presidential elections in the first round, with 63.6% of the vote, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging.[78][118][119] Opposition groups accused Putin and the United Russia party of fraud.[120][121] While efforts to make the elections transparent were publicized, including the usage of webcams in polling stations, the vote was criticized by the Russian opposition and by international observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe for procedural irregularities.[122]
Anti-Putin protests took place during and directly after the presidential campaign. The most notorious protest was the Pussy Riot Performance on 21 February, and subsequent trial.[123] An estimated 8,000–20,000 protesters gathered in Moscow on 6 May,[124][125] when eighty people were injured in confrontations with police,[126] and 450 were arrested, with another 120 arrests taking place the following day.[127] A counter-protest of Putin supporters occurred which culminated in a gathering of an estimated 130,000 supporters at the Luzhniki Stadium, Russia’s largest stadium. Some of the attendees stated that they had been paid to come, were forced to come by their employers, or were misled into believing that they were going to attend a folk festival instead.[128][129][130][131] The rally is considered to be the largest in support of Putin to date.[132]
Some secondary observations:
In February 2007, Putin criticized what he called the United States’ monopolistic dominance in global relations, and “almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations”. He said the result of it is that “no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race”.[286] This came to be known as the Munich Speech, and former NATO secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called the speech “disappointing and not helpful.”[287] The months following Putin’s Munich Speech[286] were marked by tension and a surge in rhetoric on both sides of the Atlantic. Both Russian and American officials, however, denied the idea of a new Cold War.[288] Putin publicly opposed plans for the U.S. missile shield in Europe and presented President George W. Bush with a counterproposal on 7 June 2007 which was declined.[289] Russia suspended its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty on 11 December 2007.[290]
In 2003, relations between Russia and the United Kingdom deteriorated when the United Kingdom granted political asylum to Putin’s former patron, oligarchBoris Berezovsky.[310]This deterioration was intensified by allegations that the British were spying and making secret payments to pro-democracy and human rights groups.[311]
The end of 2006 brought more strained relations in the wake of the death by polonium poisoning of former KGB and FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London, who became an MI6 agent in 2003. In 2007, the crisis in relations continued with expulsion of four Russian envoys over Russia’s refusal to extradite former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi to face charges in the murder of Litvinenko.[310] Mirroring the British actions, Russia expelled UK diplomats and took other retaliatory steps.[310]
In 2015–16, the British Government conducted an inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko. Its report was released in January 2016.[312] According to the report, “The FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin.” The report outlined some possible motives for the murder, including Litvinenko’s public statements and books about the alleged involvement of the FSB in mass murder, and what was “undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism” between Putin and Litvinenko, led to the murder. Media analyst William Dunkerley, writing in The Guardian, criticised the inquiry as politically motivated, biased, lacking in evidence, and logically inconsistent.[313] The Kremlin dismissed the Inquiry as “a joke” and “whitewash”.[314][315]
Many Russians credit Putin for reviving Russia’s fortunes.[370] Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, while acknowledging the flawed democratic procedures and restrictions on media freedom during the Putin presidency, said that Putin had pulled Russia out of chaos at the end of the Yeltsin years, and that Russians “must remember that Putin saved Russia from the beginning of a collapse.”[370][371] In 2015, opposition politician Boris Nemtsov Said that Putin was turning Russia into a “raw materials colony” of China.[372] Chechen Republic head and Putin supporter, Ramzan Kadyrov, states that Putin saved both the Chechen people and Russia.[373]
Russia has suffered democratic backsliding during Putin’s tenure. Freedom House has listed Russia as being “not free” since 2005.[374] In 2004, Freedom House warned that Russia’s “retreat from freedom marks a low point not registered since 1989, when the country was part of the Soviet Union.”[375]The Economist Intelligence Unit has rated Russia as “authoritarian” since 2011,[376] whereas it had previously been considered a “hybrid regime” (with “some form of democratic government” in place) as late as 2007.[377] According to political scientist, Larry Diamond, writing in 2015, “no serious scholar would consider Russia today a democracy”.[378]
So where does all this lead us. Am I biased against Putin? Yes, I feel what the critics say of Putin being an autocratic leader have merit to it and override the growth of Russia since his first Presidency. Too much of his country is dedicated to a few and in the long run will be the downfall of his legacy and maybe Russia. Russia will need to pick up the pieces again once the graft and corruption have been cleared away.
Putin needs Trump, and what is worrisome is Trump should not need Putin, but is showing dangerous signs of being overtly linked and connected to Putin in an unhealthy way. Putin has wanted our downfall and many of his comments are not only highly critical of us being too involved in world affairs, but also calculated to try and diminish our presence worldwide. Trump is enamored by Putin’s autocratic rule and one has to wonder did he want the Presidency only if he felt he could obtain the same power level here in the United States. To obtain that though he needs to dismantle the very processes that makes us great.
Putin needs a weak America, not weakened, but weak. His ability to reshape the global power structure is dependent on us not being able to confront him on the world stage, to have us so diminished in stature that no one gives us credence. He needs America to tear up all promises, all relationships, to fight internally so to lose our resolve against people like him so he can be successful in growing his own brand at a great cost to his country and others. He is calculating, manipulative, strong, and he works on a singular goal while we in the west work more towards an accommodating system that allows for conflict, hoping pushing the edge will make us better and bringing more people into the fold of representative government. What everything the West stands for in representative government is anathema to Putin. He is taking advantage of a people and country for his benefit and if his country were to realize the stakes they are losing he would be brought before them to answer to his actions. If we, the US and Europe are weakened it makes him look better on the world stage and helps to mask what he is doing in his own country. He wants to look good. You can see it in his attempts to manipulate the elections to give him large majorities. He and Trump do have the same character flaw. They need adulation of their success. Putin hides it better. He has surrounded himself with people who are loyal to him and has the tools necessary to fight against opposition in his country. Trump wants this, he craves it, so he made a deal with this man and soon this man will call for Trump’s soul. Trump’s egomania will abide without flinching for he is not interested in American, only himself. Today in Helsinki, Trump laid bare his ugly soul and did it in plain sight of the world. He gave it to Putin on a silver platter. Trump knows not the wikipedia history of Putin, nor the true history of Putin, Trump just knows the Trump history of Putin. A man he wants to emulate and has given away our country for this sole desire. Putin though has owned Trump for a long time or why else would anyone so blatantly kowtow to another leader.
So get ready America, brush up on Russian culture, because we are about to turn on the rest of the world and Trump’s Republican henchmen are out to help him for reasons right now unknown to destroy what made our country great.
Trump you are being eaten by the bear. And unfortunately you are taking the rest of us with you.
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