Comments on Michael Specter's Article: Why are Vladimir Putin’s opponents dying?

Credits to the author of the original Post follow:

Letter form Moscow

KREMLIN, INC.

Why are Vladimir Putin’s opponents dying?

by MICHAEL SPECTER

Issue of 2007-01-29
Posted 2007-01-22

My comments begin here:

After reading this article twice I began to put together a few comments of my own, which was not easy. Without writing a book, here is a brief reply:

I do not begin to understand the Russian people. However, the article, I believe, has a common theme. One, which has been increasingly popular for nearly a century and has undergone continual refinement and testing.

That theme is the move toward totalitarian governments, Nazism, if you will. And the basis of Nazism is corporate control of government in the name of power and profit.

To simplify my thoughts, I am using quotes from the article itself, my notes, comments and remarks are in blue. I apologize for wandering, but this subject matter can be complex and wide-spread.

Basis of Russian government:

Lukyanov said, “But through much of the nineties economic decisions in Russia could be taken only after consultation with the I.M.F. and sometimes after the approval of the American Embassy in Moscow. Russia was weak. Russia didn’t know what to do. And today’s greed is a reaction to all of that. To poverty and humiliation. Our official ideology is to make more money.”

This is fairly straight forward and I believe honest as far as it goes. All Russians desire more money, but the few in the power structure define more money much differently than the man on the street as can be seen from other statements in the article.

Are Other Governments All That Different?

And, even if we did not see why, the authorities understood at once: mass media could very easily be manipulated to achieve any goal.

Networks soon became wholly owned by the state or by companies—like Gazprom,

The goal today is simpler: to support the Kremlin and its corporate interests

I had a great Political Science Professor who talked at length about the first necessity of a totalitarian government being control of the mass media. In fact it is impossible without that control. I note with much sadness the unrelenting attack on the Internet by many governments including yours. Do you understand why?

Just look at the effectiveness of American media attacks on individuals over the last few years. Regardless of how you feel about the people destroyed, it was swift, precise, and effective on more than one level. They sacrificed the lamb, deflected the people’s attention, and gave them entertainment at the same time, while leaving the government and its corporate partners to proceed unencumbered and mostly un-noticed.

Television is the only reality in which we exist.’’

Need I say more? However, I would add sports to that statement, our modern gladiators who amuse the masses.

In 1999, after the explosions that terrorized Moscow and provided the rationale for instigating the Second Chechen War, the Kremlin quickly assumed control of essentially all television in Russia and responded harshly to those who tried to resist.

Gee, I hate to sound like a pessimist here but that one has been used by everyone over the years. The battleship Maine, the ocean liner Lusitania, the Sudetenland land, Poland, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, Weapons of mass bullshit. All these events and many many more allowed government the opportunity to manipulate the media for their (and their corporate partners) needs. Footnote: The Spanish American war was largely pushed by Hurst newspapers at first, not American in general or the government. Footnote #2: America has perfected this strategy.

“…self-censorship is worse than any other kind. Journalists know—they can feel—what is allowed and what is not.’’

It is also the most effective, spawned by both indifference and fear. After all look at the examples made of those who exceed the written and unwritten limits established by corporate government: Nazi Germany simply shot or hung them in public, In America they usually just destroy their lives, in Chile it was mass torture and murder. People get the point quickly. Today, we are warned with taunts of being unpatriotic, cut and run liberals, quitters, and of course the big one, sympathetic to the enemy. Its sort of like wife beaters, if this works they move on to step two, isolation and physical brutality, step three, elimination. Russia simply has done away with steps 1 and 2. Then, their people have been conditioned more thoroughly than we have, to date.

In the corporatist, semi-authoritarian structure that Putin has created—

Pravda, asked readers if the country needed its own Pinochet. The overwhelming response was yes

Again, manipulation by the media and corporate marketing interests (America is by far the most sophisticated) people goals and desires are diverted toward consumption at all costs. Forgive me but: I remember when dad worked, mom was there for the kids (to feed, care for and support) and dad got home at a decent time to work in the garden, yard, or go to the kids ball games. We lived in 1000 sq ft homes and required only one car. I don’t mean to belittle women in that statement. What I am trying to show is a result of mass marketing to the extent that it has changed a society, here and in other countries. Things are all important and we will do whatever it takes to get them, even sacrifice our freedom, our family, and our voice, or view Pinochet as acceptable or even desirable. That is everyone except Americans, they wouldn’t know who Pinochet was if he bit them on the ass.

Sick of the lines, the empty shops, and the false promises of Soviet life, Russians looked first to the West—and particularly to the United States—to provide an economic model. What followed was an epic disaster: the sell-off of the state’s most valuable assets made a few dozen people obscenely rich, but the lives of millions of others became far worse. The health-care system fell apart, and so did many of the social-service networks. Russia became the first industrial country ever to experience a sustained fall in life expectancy. Russian males born today can, on average, expect to live to the age of fifty-nine, dying younger than if they were born in Pakistan or Bangladesh. It is not surprising, then, that by the time Putin became President most Russians were only too happy to exchange the metaphysical ideas of free speech and intellectual freedom for the concrete desires of owning a home and a car and possessing a bank account. They also wanted to feel that somebody was in control of their country.

See my rant above. I also believe we are going through the same process right here in America. Bush has nearly bankrupted our country. There will be nothing left of social programs in 10 years, probably sooner. Corporations have already eliminated pensions, are hard at work on health care and taxes.

The Russian government has become bolder and more assertive throughout Putin’s tenure. On New Year’s Day of 2006, Russia abruptly cut gas exports to Ukraine after the government there objected to a sharp rise in the prices charged by Gazprom

Just another tool of Nazi’s to control dissent. Part and parcel to economic sanctions, invasion, and favored nation status. It just takes a different track when aimed at countries rather than individuals or groups. The intent is to humble and eliminate dissent in any form. Dissent doesn’t really bother them but, it’s a pain in the ass.

With thirty per cent of the world’s gas exports, Russia can impose its will for one simple reason. “The entire world is obsessed with energy security and resources

I hate to digress, but why do you think we are in Iraq and Afghanistan and heading towards Syria, and Iran? I have to side track on this one simply because it’s related. Adding some brief quotes from other sources:

By Dana Milbank and Justin Blum

Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A01

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

Published in the January 2004 edition of Foreign Policy In Focus

Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World’s Oil

by Michael Klare

When first assuming office in early 2001, President George W. Bush’s top foreign policy priority was not to prevent terrorism or to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction—or any of the other goals he espoused later that year following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Rather, it was to increase the flow of petroleum from suppliers abroad to U.S. markets. In the months before he became president, the United States had experienced severe oil and natural gas shortages in many parts of the country, along with periodic electrical power blackouts in California. In addition, oil imports rose to more than 50% of total consumption for the first time in history, provoking great anxiety about the security of the country’s long-term energy supply. Bush asserted that addressing the nation’s “energy crisis” was his most important task as president.

This has become THE international game, sort of mine’s bigger than yours, but much more serious and with potentially very dire consequences. Interestingly, it isn’t just multinational corporations who desire this power and wealth through control of natural resources. The public has acquiesced to their goals. See next.

“The majority of the population, they are absolutely happy,” Alexei Volin, who served for three years as deputy chief of staff in Putin’s government and now runs a highly successful publishing house, said when we met in Moscow. “They get more money. Consumption has increased two and a half times in the last six years. People are buying cars, country houses, they are going to big shopping malls—as big as those in the United States.’’ Volin, a trim, clean-cut, forty-three-year-old man dressed in a white button-down shirt and khaki Dockers, smiled. “They are just as happy as they can be,’’ he said. “They don’t have a headache because of some political problem or the concentration of power. They don’t watch TV news. They don’t care.

This remind you of anyone you know, I ask whilst looking in the mirror?

“There is another group,’’ he went on. “They are unhappy, because political life has been frozen. They don’t like the situation with Russian television or the press. Several months ago, I talked to one important Kremlin person and I asked him why is our TV news so awful and dull. And his answer was ‘Why are you watching TV? People like you should go read the Internet if you want information. TV is not for you. It’s for the people. ’ ’’

And so it is, by design, by intent, and in practice.

Polonium 210 is not easy to acquire—at least, not the amount necessary to kill a man. Nearly all of it is produced in Russia. Most people in London, and many in Moscow as well, believe that that organization was the F.S.B. Its members reserve special hatred for those who turn on it, and Litvinenko was a very high-profile traitor. He had accused the Russian President—a member of their secret fraternity—of killing his own citizens to start a war, and he had joined with the forces of Berezovsky. The F.S.B. had the motive, the skills, and the money.

Gee who would dare think that a politician would kill off some of his/her own people just as an excuse to grab unlimited power, implement an invasion of the middle east (it isn’t just Iraq) thereby placing his backers policies into action? Thus the perpetual war draining society of all economic resources save those for the war machine, and of course the rulers.

Since Alexander Litvinenko’s death, there has been much public discussion of what Putin will do next year, when his term concludes. He has promised to step down, but he has also said that he intends to “retain influence,” and people have speculated on the many ways he could do that: as Prime Minister, for example, or as chairman of Gazprom. Nobody knows, perhaps not even Putin. Russia today, and not for the first time, has wagered its well-being on the price of oil, and, as long as salaries continue to rise, people seem untroubled by the future and unwilling to dwell on even the most compelling warnings from the past.

With this last excerpt from the Times, I can finally get to my real thesis. I don’t see all that much difference between governments except the degree that the governed accept their porridge. To one degree or another all governments are marching toward the complete merger of corporate and government interests, which is to say corporate interests. Think about it; the British have embraced Orwellian surveillance in the name of security. Americans meekly surrendered their beloved Constitution, and are now marching toward the national digital ID card demanded by the HSS (that’s Homeland Security Service as opposed to the SS). I know about New Hampshire’s meek but brief protest and that of 5 or 6 other states. They were bought out and rendered irrelevant buy “The Government”. Don’t think that Cheney and Bush will surrender power and influence just because their terms end in 680 days.

The next presidential circus starting a full two years early grantees complete diversion of the media and the sedated, while the lame duck finishes his work.

So how could this happen; especially in America? Well how about this.

Once upon a time there lived a people who had it pretty good. That is until they began to turn over their personal responsibility to “THE GOVERNMENT”. Once they got used to the first big step, giving control of their schools to the government, the rest was easy. Slowly, methodically, unrelentingly the corporate behemoths pushed their employees in government to take bolder and bolder steps to bring their dream into reality.

No way you say. Well, lets look at education as just one example. Do we teach our little children to think critically, to reason, to form their own opinions based upon their own observations? If I am correct in my information, we teach them what to think, to be conformists, and above all not to criticize. Here in Florida, teachers have given up all pretense of teaching except for the FCAT tests that occur yearly. Talk to any student or teacher and all they care about is the FCAT. Jeb’s legacy to his big brother and the No Child Left Behind – which is about as truthful as I have ever seen a federal government decree in years. They want the little kids to grow up in lock step without opinions, or the ability to form one. How did this happen so easily? Here in Florida they used the big stick, FEAR. If a school performs badly, teachers get punished, schools loose money. If a school does well – they are rewarded with more money. That’s a tried and proven carrot anywhere you use it. Employment has been reduced to my way or the highway.

Take a look at any legislative body, a close look. They get elected and there is this big push to pass ever more laws. Its like telling a lie, you have to keep telling lies to cover up the original lie. Do we really need all these laws, laws which do what? By and large, they give the people what they ask for, actually beg for, even pay for, more government control, more government assumption of personal responsibility. I am amazed, that each year as the legislature goes into session every one begins scrambling for more, more, more, like they can’t get enough. Is it any wonder that government ends up with all the power? We begged for them to take it.

So the end result of all my ramblings is that governments everywhere are consolidating power in partnership with corporations who let them stay in power as a reward for their service. Methods may vary, but it’s all just a means to the end, Power and wealth.