Dear certain well-meaning people out there -- the next time you feel like posting another good-natured remark along the general lines of, Well, Putin is supported by most Russians, so he must be doing something right, please pause for a moment to consider the following salient circumstances: Russian society is a fully fledged totalitarian one at this point: no public criticism of Putin is allowed anywhere in the public arena; the majority of any remotely independent Russian print media and online news web portals have been put out of circulation or muzzled into meek subjugation to the pro-Putin POV; Russian television -- in particular, the two main channels penetrating the entire great span of the countrys territory and serving as the primary source of information about the outside world and on such issues as the situation in Ukraine to over 90% of all people -- has been engaged in a total, all-out, 24/7 propaganda overdrive on the scale Goebbels himself would be proud of (I literally -- without exaggeration -- cannot recall seeing anything quite of that shamelessly shrill and hateful pitch at any point in the 18 years of Brezhnev rule, for instance). . In all, when speaking of a dictators approval ratings, you really are talking about the efficacy of his propaganda machine; dictators historically have always had very high (100% and higher) approval ratings, and if youre willing to observe that Putin must be doing something right, please see how saying, say, Stalin and Hitler and Gaddafi must have been doing something right sits with you -- and if it sits ok, then by all means, do proceed. Obviously you do not need my permission, and it is not my place to tell you what you should or should not write with regards to your view of Putin and Russia or anything else, but I thought I would let you know than any such remark strikes me as seriously ill-informed and to a large extent patronizingly unfair to to the people of Russia.
Posted on: Thu, 22 May 2014 19:56:13 +0000
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