Occupy Pravda: MSM Pretends Putin Faces Revolution
As former Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov looked out over a crowd of between 30,000 and 100,000 Russians (depending upon who was counting) on Christmas Eve in Moscow — just before calling for the ouster of Vladimir Putin — he saw a sea of tricolor black, white, and yellow flags before him, and a second sea of red flags.
The tricolor is the flag of the Russian Nazis, the skinheads who want to liquidate anyone who is not “Rooski” — the Russian word for “Russian” meaning white, Slavic, and Orthodox. Their poster boy is Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
The red flag represents the Communist Party, led by Gennady Zyuganov. Both men have sizeable contingents in the Russian parliament. Nemtsov doesn’t have a single seat, nor has he ever been allowed to place his name on the presidential ballot.
Nemtsov must have wondered why these two groups have played such a leading role in opposing Putin’s neo-Soviet dictatorship, rather than democratic-minded folks like himself. But he should know the answer, having probably recognized that his “organization” was incapable of accurately counting the members of the crowd, or of reporting with one voice in English why they were assembled or what they planned to achieve.
The crowd started booing Nemtsov.
Just days before the protest, tape recordings undoubtedly collected by operatives of the successor to the KGB — the FSB — had been played on a Kremlin-friendly TV network. The tapes revealed Nemtsov brutally criticized other members of the hodgepodge group that organized the protest, hurling all manner of personal abuse at them. The tapes were an obvious attempt to discredit Nemtsov among his peers.
Nemtsov’s comments about his peers were perfectly justified, even somewhat measured — I was thrilled to read them. Due to its pernicious infighting, the opposition to Putin has been unable to agree on an achievable agenda, a leader, or even a name for their group. Yet: the fact that Nemtsov needed to make them — and didn’t realize he was being recorded — tells you pretty much all you need to know about the prospects of this so-called movement.
Which is just as well, because if you relied on the reporting of the mainstream media for this information, you’d be out of luck. The mainstream reports on the demonstrations against electoral fraud in Putin’s Russia have been nauseatingly wrong.
Granted, it’s hard being a Russia correspondent. You spend most of your time frozen, worried about getting brutalized or murdered, hated by the local denizens (who are famous for xenophobia), and writing about a country most people couldn’t care less about. So when you get a whiff of a story that might thrust you onto the front pages, you’re pretty desperate to tell it.
Even if there isn’t really any story at all.
On December 14, 2011, former Russia correspondent Mark Mackinnon — scribe for the Globe & Mail – tweeted the following while watching Putin conduct a live televised interview:
Q: Why doesn’t Russia have any allies? Putin: “I think Russia has lots of allies.” Names the International Olympic Committee.
It was witty, seeking to use Putin’s own words to destroy his credibility, but it was dead wrong. Putin simply didn’t say that that IOC was among Russia’s leading allies.
Putin said that when Russia asked to host the 2014 Olympic Games, a host of IOC members states voted in Russia’s favor, and Russia got the games. Putin then said that they wouldn’t have supported the bid if they weren’t Russia’s allies. In other words — Putin was fully prepared, ready for the question, and handled it with aplomb.
And he handled dozens and dozens more questions the same way, tirelessly, for over four hours. On live TV. He dominated his questioners, as has been his wont. He showed he is not the least bit afraid of elections or public interrogations, not even on live TV. He radiated the confidence of a man about to be anointed president for life with no serious opposition of any kind (because he has repeatedly shown himself ready to kill any such person).
But that’s not what Mackinnon reported. Instead, he reported that Putin made a fool of himself, seeking to imply that his grasp on power was tenuous and his overthrow imminent. Like so many current and former Russia journalists in the mainstream media, it was Mackinnnon, not Putin, who embarrassed himself. Mackinnon wants the anti-Putin crowd to succeed, and reported accordingly.
Another example: note this shamelessly cheerleading tweet from Julia Ioffe, who writes for the New Yorker and Foreign Policy:
Thousands protesting in cities all over Russia. Police don’t crack down. If Kremlin doesn’t hear this, they sign own death cert.
That’s pretty strong stuff, and it’s total nonsense. With a reply tweet, I asked Ioffe when she’d start discussing flying unicorns.
Was Ioffe attempting to suggest that the police had defied Kremlin orders to crack down and let the protesters march? If so, that would have been a lie.
As New York Times Russia correspondent Michael Schwirtz tweeted:
Police spox, said no arrests yet “and don’t expect any.” He laughed and seemed to be enjoying #10dec.
In other words, there were no arrests because the Kremlin didn’t want any, and they didn’t want them because they didn’t need them. The protests were hardly anything to be afraid of. But this quote somehow never made it into the Gray Lady’s pages.
Did Ioffe mean the protest movement was dangerously potent? The facts belie that, too. In hilarious fashion, two leading figures from the protest event were Ksenia Sobchak and Tina Kandelaki — imagine if Occupy Wall Street had been led by Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. When asked who they’d most like to hear speak, the protesters named celebrities rather than political leaders. The key comment of a participant:
It all felt much more like a national holiday, a festivity. What’s more, not even a “festivity of disobedience, but simply a festivity.”
When Ioffe referred to “thousands protesting,” she meant a national total — perhaps 75,000 people spread across dozens of cities in a country of 140 million people. In the huge city of Vladivostok, famous as a hotbed of anti-Putin agitation in the past, no more than 200 appeared on the street.
But none of this was reported properly by the mainstream media’s Russia contingent, who seemed hell-bent on breathlessly declaring revolution in Russia.
Shaun Walker, Russia correspondent for the Independent, tweeted:
Amazing day. Great to see people not afraid to shout, satirise. Really don’t think exaggeration to say Russia will be changed permanently.
Why did I KNOW I was going to see a phrase like “generation of young Russians”? The MSM just adores it when they can say “students” are protesting. And if social media are involved, it tickles them pink.
They’re so predictable.
The American press trumpets “Hope and Change” in 2008, and we get an Alinskyite Chicago machine politician. They trumpet “Hope and Change” in Egypt, and we get the Muslim Brotherhood. They say “Hope and Change” in Libya, and a totalitarian nation reverts to tribalism. They say “Hope and Change” for the Occupy crowd, and get disease, filth, and violence. Now they’re saying “Hope and Change” in Russia.
“Hope and Change” had better start to mean something a little more Hopeful and a bit more “improvement”-based than just random oscillation.
Hope and Change is nothing more than smoke aimed at your posterior.
Boris Yeltsin’s speech to the 28 Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in July 1990 predicted the events of the post-Soviet era. “Various political parties are gradually being formed in our country. At the same time, a fundamental renewal of the CPSU is inevitable. The Party should divest itself of all state functions…in this way, a Parliamentary type Party will emerge. Only this kind of Party, provided that there is a mighty renewal of society, will be able to be a leading Party and to win elections for one or another of its factions…Any socialist oriented factions of other parties may join the alliance of the country’s democratic forces…The alliance will act as a federation of national alliances….With the development of democratic movements in the country and the further radicalization of restructuring, it will be possible for this alliance to become the vanguard of society in actual fact.” Pravda July 8, 1990 cited in Current Soviet Policies XI
The Unity Party serves as the current vanguard of Russian society. The Nazi and or Communist Opposition are factions of the original CPSU; these can be manipulated and maneuvered as needed to maintain dictatorship. Yeltsin received his post from Gorbachev’s resignation as part of the “radicalization of restructuring.” Putin obtained his post via Yeltsin’s resignation and now Putin is in charge. The concept of the vanguard party was central to Lenin’s conception carried through Stalin and the post Stalinist Soviet executive and remains in place today.
Very interesting. On JRN recommendation I read your publications.
`primakov` subject is rather to the point. He is the most likely number one in the gang, actually pedofile putin operates most likely on primakov direct order
Anyway the revolution is real.
The fact that `some` observers try to prove the other way
IS EVEN MORE SYMPTOMATIC
What is realy hard to understand for the outsiders is:
ruling structures of kremlin ARE IN FACT pleying this revolution becase their extensive sociology showed that IT IS COMING
Revolutions happen in capitals. The rest will follow. Simple as that.
Moscow acumulated the vast numbers of middle class and the tradition there is to be SMART.
So the ruling structures just want to LEAD event their way BEFORE it comes to fruition
This approach is completely alien to americans and westerners
but this is REAL MARXISM AT WORK
Russia is facing a regime change. We did a good deal of rehearsal that created a ripple effect:
Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, many others(google Gene Sharp), then of course Arab Spring and.. one must be surprised: OCCUPY(as opposite to liberate
a ripple effect…
Must appreciate strategic genmius of the planners
HAVE THE HAPPIEST NEW YEAR in which ruski regime will die.
The Russian people are looking for a real leader in much the same manner as Republicans are still looking for one. But offer them someone of proven ability. particularly those who use the Internet, and things can change dramatically. Float the name Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google,http://tinyurl.com/9s88x
As Wikipedia puts it, he “a Russian-born American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the largest internet companies. As of 2011, his personal wealth is estimated to be $19.8 billion.
Brin immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union at the age of six. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland, following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps by studying mathematics, as well as computer science. After graduation, he moved to Stanford to acquire a Ph.D in computer science. There he met Larry Page, with whom he later became friends. They crammed their dormitory room with inexpensive computers and applied Brin’s data mining system to build a superior search engine. The program became popular at Stanford and they suspended their PhD studies to start up Google in a rented garage.
The Economist magazine referred to Brin as an “Enlightenment Man”, and someone who believes that “knowledge is always good, and certainly always better than ignorance”, a philosophy that is summed up by Google’s motto of making all the world’s information “universally accessible and useful”[5] and “Don’t be evil”.
See if that name flies!!
Hello Kim,
But, this one is an exception as if it was written by someone else.
I have some phobia for articles you write
I like your sincere remarks on difficulties of being a journalist in Russia. This time, your description of Putin is not black and white as most of the time before. And of course you see Russian occupiers for what they are.
Democracy is only as good as people who practice it. Give democracy to Muslims of Egypt and they will vote for Muslim Brotherhood. When idiots like McCain realize it, they will be missing Mubarak. Similarly, when we criticize Putin, let us not forget that he is a leader over people who are corrupt, brainwashed, uninformed, plagued by racial stereotypes which often translates to real racism. Pro Western cultural trends can grow only as fast as new generations and even large parts of new generations will be brainwashed in old ways of communists or more so by reemerging dumb imperialism inherited from Byzantine by Orthodox Church. The Orthodox creed is good only as long as the pops confine themselves to matters of spiritual life. Their views on politics behind the modernity by about 300 years and when they transfer those views to younger generations, support for people like Zerinovsky will grow. Now, when you look at these trends, you see that Putin is not the worst option for Russia.
Good article and welcome to the Realism, Kim. It appears, you are becoming smarter than McCain. If you were American conservative it would not be a compliment. But, when you are Russian journalist struggling to grow out of Soros funded subversive ideology, it is a compliment.
The journalistic monoculture serves tyrants everywhere, no matter what color their flag is. As the Doobies once pointed out; What a fool believes, he sees.
Agreed: If journalistic integrity isn’t dead, it’s going to take a Hollywood exorcism to restore it.
Too many bloggers and journalists seem to think that what happens in a major capital determines the fate of a nation; unless it’s Syria and then it doesn’t count since by that standard Assad will stay.
Very interesting article! As an American, married to a Russian, I am very intersted in Russia now. My mother-in-law lives in Moscow and next week we will be hosting three Russians at our home near NYC. I intend to ask them how it is going at home. It’s hard to believe the anti-russian writing in the USA. Americans and Russians have so much in common. More so than the Frogs :>)
Ms Zigfeld,
Excellent observations. After all we are talking about a ruling elite that comes from a service with a great tradition of manufacturing fake revolutions.
Putin currently faces less a revolution, than a coup. The biggest threat to Putin right now is from within the power elite which dominates the state. Putin’s moves and manuevering there will be more revealing than the faux revolution reported by the faux journalists you cite. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t dismiss the festival/carnival reporting entirely. Those events and actors also represent a medium for others to act, including others outside Russia. Others would include a dog’s breakfast of actors ranging from Berezovsky types, incompetent intel services, idiot polticians: McCain, Clinton, Sarkozy, and Cameron types and jackel journalists who make their living off the carcasses of failed states and states not yet failed.
I am originally from the former Communist county-Russia neighbor. When I was a little boy, our close neighbor used to come to our house and discuss various, mostly political issues with my Dad. Once they talked how government obedient Russian folks are. They quoted, I believe a poet, who said that when/if Russia rulers declare that this or that day they will hang citizens: the only respond from the citizens will be “Should we bring our own rope or it will be provided?”
We must all get something through our heads. There is but one real political leader in Russia. It is ‘the little father’, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
The reporters where not trying to get the truth out, nor were they truly interested in fomenting change in Russia. They were trying to contribute to the narrative of “Global change toward revolution” supposedly engendered in the “massive” Occupy Wall Street movement. No effort is made to verify accuracy only to give Western viewers a distorted notion that change has come to the world . . .
and Resistance is Futile.
…. Canada’s Globe and Mail’s Mackinnon, wants the anti-Putin crowd to succeed and “reported” accordingly ….
Joseph Goebbels is alive and well and Big Lies at the heart of every Fascist (formerly “mainstream”) Media propagandist, polemicist and pamphleteer.
Russia and her people have suffered too long.
Putin does not face the revolution, particularly not pro-western, pro-democratic revolution. It is so because Russians do remember what happened when Western (American and European) advisors “helped“ to direct Russian economy.
It is also somewhat misleading to think that people who have internet/computers must be pro-western and pro-democracy, often -in Russia and in the Middle East – the reality is just the opposite.
“because Putin has repeatedly shown himself ready to kill any such [serious opposition] person.” Who exactly was killed by Putin?
(One can suspect the answer would be Politkovskaya? But now when the alleged culprits are behind the bars this answer does not hold. Besides, Politkovskaya had never been a serious political challenge to Putin. People who used to mention Politkovskaya in this context also forgot to mention the still-unsolved case of pro-Putin Khlebnikov.)
Please provide some support to your outrageous and matter-of-fact-ly presented claim.