ABOVE IMAGE: VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA’S PRESIDENT. MANY PEOPLE IN THE WEST WISH HE WERE THEIR LEADER.
By Deena Stryker
With special addendum by Diane Gee
The Russian Platform has posted a two and a half hour documentary (see below) put together by Rossiya 24 from footage accumulated since before the start of the Putin presidency. With dozens of Putin collaborators carrying the narrative, it gives the lie to every US government attempt to paint the Russian President in its own image.
Accused of being an authoritarian (like Lee Kuan Yew, who turned the tiny island of Singapore into the country that is 11th internationally and first in Asia on the Human Development Index), at 48 he was asked to take over the presidency of the largest country in the world, which was on its knees. In the nine years since the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, the people had become tired and angry, seeing it raped by oligarchs protected by the world’s financial institutions.
The Second Chechen war began when Putin was still Prime Minister under Boris Yeltsin, and the documentary shows him on a hastily improvised flight into the war zone, over which his handlers anguished. His message to the Russian commanders on the ground surely raised eyebrows. Vodka glass held high, he told them that they would definitely drink to the fallen when the campaign was over. Then putting down the glass down without drinking, he announced: “Now it’s time to get to work.”
That was one of the many snapshots of Putin exercising authority, all equally balanced by evidence of his deep humanity. His interactions with ordinary people — whom he generally encounters when they are distressed — demonstrate the caring that is faked by smooth Western politicians.
While his enemies routinely refer to him as ‘living on a different planet’ (Angela Merkel) or being difficult to read, this visual history as well as excerpts from a long interview recorded for television with a prime time Russian journalist reveal a man who appears to wear his heart on his sleeve while knowing exactly where he wants to take his country: to a better place.
That Russians should have consistently given him an 80+ rating is easy to understand when we see him giving a judo lesson to a kid half his size. At first the boy fails to tumble him, but when he makes the move correctly, Putin allows himself to be taken down, gracefully, without the hype that would be forthcoming from a Western leader. He recognizes that his relations with the Russian people are in good part the result of having grown up in modest surroundings, while recognizing the ‘advantages’ of being born in a privileged environment.
Scarcely into his first year as President, the submarine Kursk suffered an explosion with over a hundred sailors on board. Announcing the decision not to raise it personally to their families, he displayed equal parts of pain and quiet determination to succeed in making them understand that it would be useless.
His tenacity, whether in learning to play the piano, or conquering English, was already apparent when, as a teenager, he went to the headquarters of the formidable KGB to tell them he wanted to work for them. (They told him he needed a degree in law, which he got, telling his bosses on his first job that what they were planning to do would contravene a whole series of laws, both domestic and international.)
Were President-elect Trump to see to it that this film is shown on prime time television, the alternative press would have a much easier job of fighting the Neocons’ plan to carve Russia up into so many obedient vassals. It might even spark a revolution, giving the Beltway hacks something real to chew on.
—DS
Addendum
Clintonite liberals hatred for Putin makes no sense
By Diane Gee, Special Contributing Editor at Large
Liberals are hating on Putin. While he is NOT the commie I would like him to be, I would like to know a few things.
Based on what, exactly? What do they know about him – other than bait-click US MSM headlines?
• That he banned GMO’s?
• That he banned Rothschild 1% predatory bankers?
• That their literacy rate is far higher than ours – 99.7% in 2015, according to the UNESCO. Whereas, in America, the literacy rate was not reported to the UNESCO, but we do know that the literacy rate has not changed in 10 years. On top of that, 14% of the population cannot read, with 21% of adults reading under a 5th grade level and 19% of high-schoolers not being able to read at all.
• How he was the first to offer to help with fires in Israel?
• That he helped Venezuela develop their oil production with technology and a low interest loan, so that the people could keep the profits there? (while we just asked them to let our oil companies pull it out for themselves and promises of “jobs?”) Venezuelan oil is nationalized for the profit of ALL!
• That from 2000 when he took power until 2012 – he took the poverty level from 42 million to 15 million people – until the US/EU started imposing sanctions on any country that traded outside our petro dollar? From 2014 on, direct sanctions against them were added – all for trading with BRIC nations and becoming prosperous outside our bankster system.
• That he has continually increased the guaranteed minimum income to offset that poverty?
• That Forbes named him last year the most effective economic reformer that Russia has ever seen?
• How about that he doubled the number of women in Parliament?
Give me some reasons or research it until you find one.
If you say the Ukraine, I will link you to my friends that live there, and will tell you he did nothing, certainly no invasion- and they wished he had – when the West conspired with Nazis to pull a coup on a democratically elected government. Meanwhile, the people of Crimea, observing these foul developments, wanted none of it. Long part of Russia (and also the Soviet Union) the Crimeans voted in an internationally ratified referendum to rejoin their motherland, a vote later ratified by the Russian Federation. There was no “takeover” of Crimea, except in the insidious minds of Western propagandists and the media hacks doing their bidding.
And if you utter the words “Pussy Riot” I will scream again at you – “HE ALLOWED THEM IN EVERY PUBLIC PLACE. THEY DID THEIR PROTESTS ALL OVER RUSSIA, UNSCATHED. WHAT THEY COULD NOT DO, IS GO INTO A PRIVATE CHURCH AND TERRORIZE PEOPLE. IF THEY WENT INTO A BAPTIST CHURCH HERE, BLOCKED THE DOORS AND BARED THEIR GENITALS, THEY WOULD BE ARRESTED TOO.”
Now try being fair for once, and draw your own conclusions.
—DG
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DEENA STRYKER, Senior Contributing Editor
Born in Philadelphia, Stryker spent most of her adolescent and adult years in Europe, resulting over time in several unique books, her latest being
CUBA: Diary of a Revolution, Inside the Cuban Revolution with Fidel, Raul, Che, and Celia Sanchez
America Revealed to a Honey-Colored World
A Taoist Politics: The Case For Sacredness
She began her journalistic career at the French News Agency in Rome, spent two years in Cuba finding out whether the Barbudos were Communists before they made the revolution (‘Cuba 1964: When the Revolution was Young’). After spending half a decade in Eastern Europe, and a decade in the U.S., studying Global Survival and writing speeches in the Carter State Department, she wrote the only book that foresaw the fall of the Berlin Wall AND the dissolution of the Soviet Union (“Une autre Europe, un autre Monde’). Her memoir, ‘Lunch with Fellini, Dinner with Fidel’, tells it all. ‘A Taoist Politics: The Case for Sacredness’, which examines the similarities between ancient wisdom and modern science and what this implies for political activism; and ‘America Revealed to a Honey-Colored World” is a pamphlet about how the U.S. came down from the City on a Hill’.
DIANE GEE, Special Editor at Large
The first thing that anyone needs to know about Diane Gee is that she is well nigh unclassifiable: part-time radio host, full-time iconoclast, encyclopedic in knowledge, with interests spanning many subjects, and with a long career as an independent radical blogger (The Wild Wild Left), she can be counted to always speak her mind. To the furtherance of reason and social justice.
Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com
We apologize for this inconvenience.
What will it take to bring America to live according to its own propaganda?
=SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.=
free • safe • invaluable
Please see our red registration box at the bottom of this page
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Greanville Post, a publication of The Voice of Nature Network, Inc., (VNN), a not-for-profit 501 (c) (3) corporation, will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Greanville Post grants permission to cross-post original The Greanville Post articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author's copyright must be displayed. For publication of The Greanville Post articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact:
THE GREANVILLE POST contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues, and the furtherance of peace and social justice, the defence of our planetary ecosystems, and the prevention and eventual elimination of human abuse, exploitation,.and cruelty toward any and all non-human species The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.
For media inquiries contact us at greanville@gmail.com
I can add some more notable figures. Like the late great Hugo Chavez, el Commandante himself. That is the real problem here in the west . If it were not for the internet we would not be able to get any real news or information. I myself have never lived in the USSR or any soviet or Warsaw pact country but I was always reminded how information was filtered and screened in these countries; well it appears that we in the West our now living in a soviet state when it comes to police, politics and further more the West… Read more »
Our reader —whose comments we always esteem—is quite right about his points, but there is a need to refine his perspective, and that relates to the contextual difference that always existed between the so-called “Free World” (where news was NEVER free and honest, and we can easily document that, a situation that has degenerated much further now and delivered us a regime of complete propaganda by the mainstream media in ALL important subjects), and the Soviet world, where OPEN (they never hid them) restrictions on what circulated could be seen and discussed. In the Soviet case, we must consider the… Read more »
Thanks for the feed back. Sorry but when I write i try to be succinct and measured. Don’t want to bore anyone with a long blog. I am an old fashion Gramscian hence I am aware of the contextual differences. Have been all my life. My grandfather personally new Antonio Gramsci and was one of the founding members of the Gramscian movement in the 20’s.(Southern Italy Branch) Marched in Rome during the ”BIENNIO ROSSO” period in Italy where during the years of 1918-20 Italy was experiencing massive labour descent and rolling strikes through out the peninsula. Cheers thoroughly enjoy all… Read more »