• “His government has shut down TV stations and newspapers, jailed businessmen whose wealth and influence challenged the Kremlin’s hold on power, defanged opposition political parties and arrested those who confront his rule. Yet this grand bargain-of freedom for security-appeals to his Russian subjects, who had grown cynical over earlier regimes’ promises of the magical fruits of Western-style democracy. Putin’s popularity ratings are routinely around 70%.”

.

How old is the author of this article? Seventeen? Such socialist fantasy I haven’t seen since the Reagan era.  It says “…defanged opposition political parties…” You mean “Jailed the opposition?” Do you know if you put your enemies in prison, you will become immensely popular? It’s very simple. “Putin will send me to jail if I speak out against him? Go Putin! Putin is my dream! Who are these 30% who do not support Emperor Putin?”

 I cannot believe anyone pays real money to read or be associated with Time magazine. From “arrested those who confront his rule” to “…popularity ratings are routinely 70%” there is one sentence. Does Time really believe the 70% figure is true? Does the imprisoned opposition get polled?  Get serious. Time’s “Person of the Year” should be what most of their written words are obsessing about. President Bush. In 2000 and 2004 they were honest. Rudy getting it in 2001 and the American Soldier getting it in 2003 were good picks. All the others are just slow news cycle picks. They want people to talk about why such and such was chosen.

It obviously works in their minds because we will all blog about it. This is not like their 1938 pick of Hitler however. They did not pick Putin to criticize because he is a heavy-handed dictator, they picked him to admire the fact that he is a heavy-handed dictator. Those of us blogging about it are writing about the sophistry of Time’s analysis of what makes a desirable leader. Don’t they realize they could not operate for two days in Russia? Maybe that’s the point. With actual readership of these magazines dying off, they are hoping to be picked up as Putin’s State Newspaper.

Filed under: Wisdom of the Ages by admin