domingo, 7 de octubre de 2012


The friends of Putin

By Julieta Muñoz Portal


07/10/2012

The past 3th of October, the newspaper Proceso published a special report entitled “The friends of Putin"; The article talks about how to be friends with Vladimir Putin in Leningrad equals to hitting the jackpot in the lottery, it Talks about several cases in which childhood friends of the Russian president have now become the richest men in the world, some of them even making the ranking of Forbes magazine richest men on the planet.
How far is the concept of freedom within the Putin administration, to the one that a fascist government has? In my opinion is not that far away, the Putin administration has been known for his questionable methods and has certainly been not afraid to show how they rule with a fist of steel, crushing their opponents and whoever gets on the way of the interest of the state.
Fascist reject any form of individual liberty, the only concept of Freedom known to them is the unquestioning submission to the will of the leader and the absorption of the individual into the national community, in other words the individual becomes one within the state, he cannot question the state interest because by definition those are the interest of the whole country. When it comes to fascist we can certainly apply the well-known phrase “you’re either with us, or against us” or as said by Darth Vader  to Obi-Wan Kenobi In the climax of the film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,, "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy." And ever since in power it seems that president Putin takes this very literally.
Russian media is controlled by the state as well as television, and those who decide to expose the flaws and as you can say "dirty business" of the president receive the full weight of justice, but justice is not given by the state but by a series of underground networks that are linked directly with President Putin and his close social circle. A perfect example would be the famous case of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, author of books like Putin's Russia or Chechnya Hell, who had reported receiving death threats because of her anti Putin work. Finally on October 7, 2006 she was killed in the elevator of the building where she had his home in Moscow, also linked is the case of Alexander Litvinenko  a former Russian spy poisoned, according to Western media allegedly for criticizing Putin government, when he was on the process of  investigate the murder of Politkovskaya began receiving death threats. Putin's government has denied any connection with the death of such persons, stating that it could sue those who slander the Russian government on the subject.
From what it looks like is that when working in the high ranks of the Russian government or in the “free” media, whether you are %100 supportive of the Putin agenda or you are against them (and most likely close to disappear or be murdered under mysterious circumstances).

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