Vladmir Putin is currently on a stand-up tour of his country prior to next month's Russian parliamentary elections. And, naturally, the Western press is covering what Putin has to say in an even-handed and objective fashion.
Take a speech Putin made this Tuesday for example
Here's what Reuters had to say...
Putin slams foreign nationals for backing opposition
President Vladimir Putin, using Cold War rhetoric, accused foreign governments on Wednesday of sponsoring his opponents in next month's election to weaken Russia and carry out "dirty tricks" against it...
Or The Times...
Vladamir Putin attacks the West as clamour grows for him to stay in power
Amid the razzmatazz of an Americanstyle election rally yesterday, President Putin accused the West of plotting a campaign of dirty tricks to destabilise Russia.
He told thousands of flag-waving supporters that opponents of United Russia, his party, were in the pay of foreign governments determined to weaken and divide the country at parliamentary elections on December 2.
The President, apparently fearful of the “colour” revolutions that swept away the regimes in Georgia and Ukraine after rigged elections, said that Russia faced a conspiracy to trigger similar mass demonstrations...
Not that I mistrust such even-handed and objective sources such as Reuters or The Times but I thought I'd have a quick peek at the original speech in Russian - and with the aid of Babelfish and a couple of web searches I've come up with these translated extracts...
"Who are these parties? Those, who during decades ruled Russia, and at the end of the 80s let the people without basic services and goods, without sugar, without meat, without salt, without matches and with their policy for sure prepared dissolution of USSR.
Or speculations from those, who some ten years ago controlled key positions in federal assembly and in the government. These are those, who in 90s by being at high positions/functions caused damage to society and to the country, by serving to the interests of oligarchic structures and stealing the national property. These are trying to teach us to live today, they made, among others, the corruption the main means of political and economical competition. These are those, who year by year took unbalanced, irresponsible absolute budgets, leading at the end to default, decline and multiple attacks on standard of living of the citizens of our country.
Did not these opponents sneeringly call national economy "black hole" and refused the necessity of state support of population?
These are those, who for years did not pay child support, pensions, and salaries...
By one word all those, who at the end of the last century brought Russia to mass misery, general bribery to what we are fighting with still today."
which isn't quite the same thing as what the Western news agencies would have their readers believe Putin is saying...
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13 comments:
I'm sure a few of our least attractive immigrants will be reading this in the original russian, and shedding a little tear for the good old days of which putin speaks
Another conspiraloon is Anne Williamson whose testimony to the US house or representatives, called the Rape of Russia, is here.
Impressive that she didn't infect the level headed, strong minded Americans with this conspiralunacy.
Good stuff
per Ms Williamson...
Once the crime of voucher privatization was fully realized, thereafter ensued a years-long highly-criminal and oftentimes murderous scramble for hands-on control of the enterprises. Directors stashed profits abroad, withheld employees’ wages and after cash famine set in, used those wages, confiscated profits and state subsidies to "buy" the workers’ shares from them. The really good stuff - oil companies, metals plants, telecoms - was distributed to essentially seven individuals, "the oligarchs", on insider auctions whose results were agreed beforehand. Once effective control was established, directors - uncertain themselves of the durability of their claim to the newly-acquired property - chose to asset strip with impunity instead of developing their new holdings.
though I'm not convinced that it was uncertainty about their claim that caused the directors to asset strip their new holdings. The faceless owners of newly privatised utilities outside of the FSU have no such uncertainty and have still stripped to the bone
One of the most interesting questions about the Russian oligarchs I've yet to see a clear, credible answer to is where did people with such relatively humble backgrounds get the money to buy up Russia in the first place? Admittedly they picked everything up for a fraction of its true value but a fraction of hundreds of billions is still hundreds of millions...
According to The Exile, Jews were marginalised in USSR society, so any ambitious Jewish person would need to deal in criminality/blackmarket activities to get ahead. Have a read, here (Mark Ames is a curious chap, don't know how much credence to give his site especially since it can be incredibly tacky sometimes. WarNerd is cool though).
On second thoughts, it still doesn't answer your question though ...
I recall that the very same eXile points out in the same article that Putin replaced the old Jews with some new Jews I doubt that Putin was playing the Protocols card in his speech
Having said that, some of the characters behind the oligarchs might just happen to be nominally Jewish but that's no reason to get a pogrom going
Because I've got Italian ancestry the analogy I like to use is with the Mafia/ Camorra. For various historical reasons, people of Italian extraction have access to career opportunities in and have been over-represented in organised crime but I'm don't think that means Italians have any more of a predisposition towards organised crime than any other group.
One historical reason I'm not buying though is Ames' claim that Jews were marginalised in Soviet Society. Quite the opposite, and Ames, and his Russian readers, must know that he's shoveling shit with that line
War Nerd rules...
War Nerd is also, very possibly, Mark Ames...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Brecher
One of the most interesting questions about the Russian oligarchs I've yet to see a clear, credible answer to is where did people with such relatively humble backgrounds get the money to buy up Russia in the first place?
I'm sure the elvis of economics, jeffrey sachs, put them in touch with a few perfectly legal institutions when he set up his murderous shell game.
If Bono thinks Sachs is Elvis the guy just has to be alright
/ starts choking uncontrollably
speaking of bongo, I wonder how brand red is doing, last thing I read it was well on the way to raising 3 figure sums for the poor and starving .
The nobel peace prize cannot be far off for the bawling, passionate midget.
'Not that I mistrust such even-handed and objective sources such as Reuters or The Times but I thought I'd have a quick peek at the original speech in Russian'
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My father used to translate for the sub-titles of what the Beeb was claiming were the speeches in Russian often seen on TV.
Usually there were vast differences in meaning.
Later teaching in E Europe, after getting the feel for the culture, I learnt to differentiate on a cultural basis ie that is not the way 'they' would externalise that.
The speech of maddinnerjacket was 'doctored' in the same way to include a concept which doesn't exist in Farsi.
I hold no brief for the said maddinnerjacket but, when I have seen him on TV, I always think he is a lot more cultured, intelligent and less mad than some translations would have us believe.
All roads lead to Goldmans.
Ah yes, Goldmans, the natural choice for the discerning and well-informed investor. What with their uncanny predictive abilities and all...
Big on global warming and youth education too...
http://tinyurl.com/2zeura
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