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84 comments on Oilwatch Monthly - December 2007
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84 comments on Oilwatch Monthly - December 2007
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Hi,
I know it is fun to bash the US, but Putin is another of a long line of Russian/Soviet thugs who kill dissidents, most recently Alexander Litvinko.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko
There is a good reason that the former Eastern block/Soviet countries want to join NATO. They escaped an evil empire that murdered on an inconceivable scale.
Dave
Whereas our thugs now just torture folks from other countries?
Just because Russia may be bad, doesn't mean we're much better. So we choose to be glad we're stuck in the lesser of two evils, with our version presently headed much down the path theirs was then.
I was in East Berlin in about 1982 once, only for a day so it's not like I got more than a "feel" for it. Indeed, their system seemed to produce a lot of people who hated the occupying Russian forces and were not the happiest. Not everybody in the west loved American forces stationed there either. Examples on both sides that I observed acted like smug conquerors much of the time.
The one real advantage I thought the eastern version had then was virtually no advertising, except for political propaganda and there really wasn't as much of that as there was Sony propaganda on the other side. It was the only time I ever experienced a city without a lot of billboards and branding messages.
Both systems were/are based on a form of materialism that, extended out, essentially ends up with the planet exploited, and probably dead. One might have taken a lot longer, but it's a half dozen of one, half dozen of another.
I may not have a good answer for what would work better, but I don't believe what we're doing now is particularly good or likely to be long-lived.
We're slaves to work identities. They pretended to work for the good of the state.
Medvedev as an oil man will concetrate hopefully on renewing infrastructure in the industry and investing in new developments. Putin can do the rest of the work as Prime Minister. Russian internal stability with rule of law, business development, prosperity and the stability of Russian oil and gas production is critical of peace in The West.
I thought the other day that Putin was in a quandary after his party won the elections. He was so popular that he could easily rule his whole life and change the constitution. However the moment he made that move his legitimacy, the whole basis of his popularity wouldhave been withdrawn. As long as he is seen as legitimate and democratic, playing by the rules, Mr. Clean in a sea of corrupt politicans, protecting the country, his actions will be legitimized. The moment he tries to cash out and become "Dictator for Life" his legitimacy is out the window. So he had to take a lesser job with likely almost the same power as before. His popularity and influence come from his personal integrity as much as from his office. We see what Bush has done with the title of President and this statement no longer seems completely naive.
He is probably the most competent and normal leader of Russia since Peter the Great. There have been so many idiots and weaklings and mad men along the way.
We should all stop looking at Russia all from ideological slant or in terms of our recent relationship to Russia. We need a stable partnership with a happy, prosperous country and these leaders are the best you can ever expect to get.
Putin's university thesis of leveraging oil and gas for geostrategic influence seems a logical basis for foregin policy as it is really all they have at the moment. Total global domnination in the US sense would be completely unreasonable as a goal. This has only brought the US to the verge of collapse similar to the situation the Soviet Union had by supporting East Bloc and 3rd world countries with weapons and economic subsidies whiole maintaining a huge weapons programs. Maybe we could compare the current Russian and US situation to the Byzantine and Western Roman empires. In the East they scaled back in time and concentrated on the basics and survived nicely for 1000 years more while in the West they jsut kept up appearances and tried to maintain a massive empire which guaranteed collpase. Maybe USA is like Rome forcing itself into collapse by ignoring reality while Russia will remain modest and self contained maintain stability well into the future.