Josef Stalin is known for revisionist history - deleting his political opponents from photographs - after he deleted many of them from the planet, of course. It now seems that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has brought Stalin's tactics into the 21st century. Not the killing - but how would anybody know? You certainly wouldn't see it on television.According to an article in today's International Herald Tribune, Putin and the Kremlin control the nations television networks and officially prohibit all members of opposing parties from appearing. Furthermore, they've gone so far as to digitally delete criticism of the government and even the people speaking critical words from programming before airing it.
Free speech doesn't exist in Russia. So much for glasnost.
There's still a bear in the woods. Don't forget it.
2 comments:
The U.S. was the most powerful and technologically advanced country in the world from WWII to the 1990s. As long as the U.S. and the U.S.S.R had their nucs pointed at each other, we knew where the world stood.
The fall of the Soviet Union caused us to drop our guard and become complacent. Investment in new technology stopped because of the expense involved, and we've become stagnent.
And the result was 9/11 the "War on Terror", and the fear of Soviet technology and nuclear weapons falling into terrorists' hands.
We need a more powerful conterpart to keep foreign politics in balance. And the Russian people need a stronger government to rebuild their economy.
Do I agree with Putin's politics and tactics - not at all.
But I'm not sure Putin's increasing power is a bad thing, either.
It's possible that Russia's increased power could help to stablize the middle east nations and bring terrorist states under some assemblence of control. And having a clear foriegn foe could bring focus to the U.S.
Interesting point Dameon. But it seems a bit worrisome to me to "hope" for the rise of a second superpower to keep the nations of the world in balance. For a couple of reasons . . . one, that other superpower would be a threat to the U.S. and two, can we count on this generation of leaders to stand firm against a new evil empire?
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