The Russia bashing has backfired.

[brianct]

216. my letter to Cohen at Ottawacitizen on his still endoring and spreading the Putin-phobia steretypes

Nice article Mr Cohen
But it perpetuates the stereotypes:


http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Column+Sochi+schadenfreude/9491186/story.html


… the stereotypes used to empower and justify sochi bashing in the first place. Ive endured reams of pages of Putin/Sochi/russia bashing by the ’free press’, where even those who wish to apply the breaks contribute to the melee. Lets consider:

1. President Putin is not the crazed autocrat you imagine or want to wind your readers up with. Hes the elected head of the 2nd most powerful state on earth: and but for president Putin there would be no Russia today. A little history about Putin and post communist Russia: The Unknown Putin
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8B50585675DC1F5C
The main objection to Putin is not that he is the ‘president-for-life’ as you put it , but that he is not a controlled puppet, as the leader of Canada is or the heads of eu states. Who gave Edward Snowden asylyum? Not canada or the EU: indeed the EU heads obeyed orders and closed their airspace to the plane of the president of Bolivia, which they were told had Snowden obboard. Who stopped the US attack on Syria and providing alqaeda with an air support? Not Canada or EU. Who helped reinvigorate russia so it CAN hold an olympics? Not the US regime.

2. ‘contempt for human rights’ : so US or UK or Greece or Canada from nations that have hosted olympics lately, are free of corruption and support HR? Yet did Russia ever launch a campaign of vilification? This is just another and current pretext.
3. ‘Anti gay’ laws…one of the main HR issues has been the so called ‘antigay’ laws’, later when a bit better informed, ‘anti gay propaganda’ laws which are nothing of the sort…(see white paper below)
4. ‘Our liberal sensibility is offended by a swaggering strongman who picks the wrong friends at home and abroad, jails his enemies and wants to rule forever’
Yours, not mine…’swaggering strong man’ is also how 10 times elected president Chavez of venezuela was described (and as any liberal does any independent leader), It does take a strongman to stop an armed attack: on Syria while saving a real wanna be strongman Obama, who drone bombs civilians, from a public loss of face. But ‘strongman’ is term used by the really corrupt to attack a capable independent leader.
5. What wrong friends? You mean presidents Assad, the late Chavez, Chinas Xi Jinping, Irans new presisdent? Who? Meanwhile here are some REALLY wrong friends: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html
6. Does Putin want to rule forever? I hope he does? You may recall when he was not president, the UN authored a resolution 1973, for NATO to attack Libya: which the president Medved didn’t sign but didn’t veto: result: a devastated Libya. Putin as PM opposed the UN resolution,…but as he wasn’t president he could not autocratically countermand Medvedev . HAD Putin been president he would ha vetoed this evil resolution..then this wold not have occurred: http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_63567.shtml
So yes id like to see him president for life…noone lives forever: why change a good govt for a bad one, such has you endure in Canada?

7. ‘We are outraged by how Russia treats its g-ays and lesbians. At a time this issue is all but settled in Europe and North America, we consider Russia’s repressive law antediluvian.’…………..how does Russia treat its LGBT people? Lets ask a g-ay advocate Brian Heiss: – http://static.prisonplanet.com/p/images/february2014/white_paper.pdf his investigation may surprise you. Esp its so called ‘repressive law’.
8. The issue of g-ays is not settled in North AM: not by a long chalk:: http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/02/13/kansas_anti_gay_segregation_bill_is_an_abomination.html?wpisrc=burger_bar
9. ‘The ethical problem for us is that, while we are quick to condemn the Russians, we accept no responsibility for the regime. We didn’t create Vladimir Putin, but he lays bare our own hypocrisy and amnesia.’……….its not a ‘regime’ its a government, as legitimate as your own, but freer ad with more integrity. You didnt create Putin..but you did create your own head of state, a servant of the US and an aider of islamism terrorism in syria…..Do you accept responsibility for the US regime and its war on Iraq?
10. ‘He thinks that we have missed opportunities to engage the Russians in a way that would have eased their transition from communism and authoritarianism’ translation: take control thru advisors and bend Russia to our will and make it subservient to Washington. as the EU has been bent to US wills: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/05/the-servility-of-the-satellites/ Russians far prefer Putin and freedom…from US control.
11. ‘This doesn’t excuse Putin’s regime. But our indifference helped create a climate of anxiety among a proud people who had lost their empire, their stature and much of their dignity. We were insensitive to that’
Guess what:.President Putin, with no help from the west, helped Russia win back its dignity: it did so by taking back the economy the former govt tried to privatise: sell off to greedy businessmen allied to the.US….eg Khodorkovsky.
This fixation on ‘Putins regime’, is a part of the dodgy scheme to undermine the govt of Russia by doing what you criticise others: demonization its leader.
12’ We don’t have to like Putin and his regime. But had we been less sanctimonious and more perceptive, we might be seeing a different Russia behind those Olympic Rings today’
Many people, not the corrupt middle class intellectuals who write media editorials, DO like president Putin and loathe the US regime and all its leaders: from Nixon to Obama, and find the idea of turning Russia into Canada, with a regime more satisfactory to the current empire , risible.
So lets hope your next editoria is more in tune with current reality…and not a left handed jibe at its subject
The proper symbol for Sochi is the Phoenix: rising from the ashes of a catastrophe brought on it BY the US empire and Yeltsin…and that’s why the empire and its media miscreants have been bashing Sochi President Putin and Russia .
Regards