| Even if effective as a means of control, such bullying makes the citizen an enemy.  Ralph Peters "New York Post"
WHILE Western leaders remain mired in 20th-century thinking, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia has reinvented dictatorship for a new century. The new czar's creation is tolerant totalitarianism.
Putin's one brilliant insight - a revolution in political thought - is that the dictators of the past, whether ideologues or religious fanatics, didn't know where to stop. The Stalins and the Maos, the Calvins and Khomeinis, all insisted on prying into the private sphere. Czar Vladimir grasped that a post-modern dictatorship needs to make only a single compromise to prosper: It has to halt at the front door. We Americans inherited a unique tradition from England, the belief in the freedom of the public space. But most human beings - not least, Russians - are content with the right to do or say what they want behind closed doors, among family and friends. The obsession with controlling the private sphere weakened past dictatorships (just as it sabotaged al Qaeda in Iraq). The iconic novel of the last century, George Orwell's "1984," captured the corrosive effects of the state's intrusion into each last corner of private life: Even if effective as a means of control, such bullying makes the citizen an enemy. Putin got it. He grasped that kitchen-table complaints and bedroom rebellions, far from being a threat to state power, are essential means for citizens to let off steam. So he formed a compact with his people: "I get the political power, you get material progress and social freedoms. Behave in the streets, and I'll stay out of your sheets." This was a move of genius. The Putin model - tolerant totalitarianism - gave the dying command-state a new lease on life. The new czar saw that most human beings don't care who governs them, as long as the government minds its own business. And if the ruler can revive the illusion of national power, so much the better. Shamelessly cynical, Putin goes through the stage-managed forms of democracy. He even permits scripted media criticism of the state (though not of himself). But there are limits to the new totalitarianism's tolerance. You can call Putin a baboon-butt monkey-boy over the vodka bottle at your kitchen table - but don't do it in public. Cross that line and you are, literally, dead. A deal's a deal. The breathtaking lack of response from the West as the Putin regime murders uncooperative journalists, human-rights activists, defense lawyers, regime apostates and even foreign critics is a glorious gift to Czar Vladimir. His security services are permitted to murder ex-pats in Vienna or London. Even an assassination attempt on an American critic in the Washington, DC, area got swept under the diplomatic rug with remarkable speed. Putin's starting to look like a slicker version of Saddam Hussein, with sharper targeting skills (and Vlad really does have weapons of mass destruction). As a result of the West's cowardice, his ambitions are soaring: The most-predictable geopolitical event of 2009 is an assassination attempt on Georgia's president, Mikhail Saakashvili, by a "Georgian patriot." Working through the traitorous Ukrainian power-broker Yulia Timoshenko, Putin's also going to do all he can to "reunite" Ukraine and Russia. And he'll continue to use natural gas as a strategic weapon, while Europe boldly responds, Oh, dear. . . One really ought not to do that . . . Really, one oughtn't. . ."
 A friend who's gotten up close to Putin sees the dictator as a mere chinovnik - a petty bureaucrat promoted above his station. But that view misses the elementary human reality that greatness and pettiness, courage and cravenness, brilliance and banality, can all be attributes of the same individual. As I've pointed out in the past, Putin does have two weaknesses: his temper, which leads the ice-man to attack his neighbors in fits of pique, and economic illiteracy. The one-two punch of the oil-price collapse and a global depression is limiting Putin's ability to keep up his half of the "other New Deal" by improving Russia's quality of life. A serious outburst of unrest could fire his temper and wreck his political Ponzi scheme. Yet protests to date have been minor and managed. Developments could go a number of ways as the Russian economy crumbles. But whether Putin continues to reign for decades or falls in an orgy of Russian self-destructiveness, his intellectual legacy will endure: the dictatorship that stops at the front door. Ralph Peters' latest book is "Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World."
COMMENTS - несколько весьма интересных мнений об Обаме и его политике. Можно сравнить с нашими комментариями, по духу...
Cara C wrote:
>>To all the Obama haters...he's been in office 2+ weeks and already he's a communist? Obama was a Communist before he got into office. That's why he's spent his career working with anti-American Marixsts. Years working alongside Bill Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, giving grants to radicals who wanted to overthrow capitalism. Years working with ACORN and its subsidiaries, groups founded to overthrow capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy. Years attending Unity Trinity, which preaches Marxist-based Black Liberation Theology. The "stimulus" package will obviously not help the economy. It will help collapse it while paying Obama's constituents. If he succeeds, the middle class will be wiped out and we will never have fair elections again.
2/7/2009 3:11 PM EST
Steerpike wrote:
We'll have to see if Obama is a match for Putin, Putin being after all a new Machiavelli. Anyway he will do a better job than Bush (I've seen his soul, blah blah blah)
2/6/2009 8:42 PM EST
KEVIN wrote:
Excellant article, and VERY scary also. Barry will have to be very carful dealing with Russia. I am afraid the bear will be causing us heartburn for us for some time to come.
2/6/2009 4:22 PM EST
Grandpa Dan wrote:
Will Putin walk all over Obama or are they both in the same Socialist/Communist boot camp anyway ?
2/6/2009 11:08 AM EST
Me2 wrote:
Putin owns obama and they both know it. Putin just flushed 2 billion into the coffers of Kyrgystan, to kick us out of our leased military base. $2 billion - 0.25% of the ridiculous "stimulus" he wants to pass. For chump change, we could be maintaining our allies in the caucuses, keeping al qaeda out of Somalia, and funding anti-wahhabi islam in Kosovo (yeah, Saudi Arabia has been trying to send their minions over to Kosovo to turn real moderate pro-American muslims into maniacs). But no, the obamessiah would like to focus on social welfare and pay off unions.
2/6/2009 10:26 AM EST
SageReader wrote:
In the recesses of my mind, I've been contemplating what the likely military reaction to Obama's governmental makeover will be, once the inevitability and permanence of the Czar Barack's actions take hold. Will it be benign or begrudging acceptance? Or maybe, as a previous blogger offers, it's an American Pooty-Poot, arising from the military, who could put America's house back in order. Fasten your seat belts!
2/6/2009 9:11 AM EST
Dr. Risk wrote: I am reminded of the Cold War joke where an American is talking to friend in Moscow, trying to explain the concept of freedom. He says, “I can go to Times Square at high noon and yell at the top of my voice ‘Reagan is a son of a btch’, and nothing would happen to me.” His Soviet friend responds, “We have the same freedom here.” Incredulous, the American says, “WHAT???” His Soviet friend responds, “I can go to Red Square at high noon and yell at the top of my voice ‘Reagan is a son of a btch’, and nothing would happen to me.” 2/6/2009 8:41 AM EST
Altosackbuteer wrote:
Pooty-Poot (Bush's vaguely fecal-sounding pet name for Putin) sounds like a genius to me. It's hardly as though the shambles that is American Democracy is any better. Give me an American general who thinks like Pooty-Poot. Such generals already oversee the Armed Forces, the last remaining reservoir of public virtue left in the United States -- and anyone who doubts that should pay close attention to the splendid morale and behavior of American soldiers in Iraq. There are many problems that American Democracy provably has not and will never address. An American Pooty-Poot, arising from the military, could put America's house back in order.
2/6/2009 7:30 AM EST
http://www.nypost.com/sev>en02062009/postopinion/o>pedcolumnistsczar_vlads_>tolerant_tyranny_153802.htm?pa>ge=2#comments
http://www.inosmi.ru/stor>ies01/05/29/2996/247365.>html перевод
Failure to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown
The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 2:05AM GMT 15 Feb 2009
Comments 161 | Comment on this article
If mishandled by the world policy establishment, this debacle is big enough to shatter the fragile banking systems of Western Europe and set off round two of our financial Gtterdmmerung.
Austria's finance minister Josef Prll made frantic efforts last week to put together a €150bn rescue for the ex-Soviet bloc. Well he might. His banks have lent €230bn to the region, equal to 70pc of Austria's GDP.
"A failure rate of 10pc would lead to the collapse of the Austrian financial sector," reported Der Standard in Vienna. Unfortunately, that is about to happen.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says bad debts will top 10pc and may reach 20pc. The Vienna press said Bank Austria and its Italian owner Unicredit face a "monetary Stalingrad" in the East.
Mr Prll tried to drum up support for his rescue package from EU finance ministers in Brussels last week. The idea was scotched by Germany's Peer Steinbrck. Not our problem, he said. We'll see about that.
Stephen Jen, currency chief at Morgan Stanley, said Eastern Europe has borrowed $1.7 trillion abroad, much on short-term maturities. It must repay – or roll over – $400bn this year, equal to a third of the region's GDP. Good luck. The credit window has slammed shut.
Not even Russia can easily cover the $500bn dollar debts of its oligarchs while oil remains near $33 a barrel. The budget is based on Urals crude at $95. Russia has bled 36pc of its foreign reserves since August defending the rouble.
"This is the largest run on a currency in history," said Mr Jen.
In Poland, 60pc of mortgages are in Swiss francs. The zloty has just halved against the franc. Hungary, the Balkans, the Baltics, and Ukraine are all suffering variants of this story. As an act of collective folly – by lenders and borrowers – it matches America's sub-prime debacle. There is a crucial difference, however. European banks are on the hook for both. US banks are not.
Almost all East bloc debts are owed to West Europe, especially Austrian, Swedish, Greek, Italian, and Belgian banks. En plus, Europeans account for an astonishing 74pc of the entire $4.9 trillion portfolio of loans to emerging markets.
They are five times more exposed to this latest bust than American or Japanese banks, and they are 50pc more leveraged (IMF data).
Spain is up to its neck in Latin America, which has belatedly joined the slump (Mexico's car output fell 51pc in January, and Brazil lost 650,000 jobs in one month). Britain and Switzerland are up to their necks in Asia.
Whether it takes months, or just weeks, the world is going to discover that Europe's financial system is sunk, and that there is no EU Federal Reserve yet ready to act as a lender of last resort or to flood the markets with emergency stimulus.
Under a "Taylor Rule" analysis, the European Central Bank already needs to cut rates to zero and then purchase bonds and Pfandbriefe on a huge scale. It is constrained by geopolitics – a German-Dutch veto – and the Maastricht Treaty.
But I digress. It is East Europe that is blowing up right now. Erik Berglof, EBRD's chief economist, told me the region may need €400bn in help to cover loans and prop up the credit system.
Europe's governments are making matters worse. Some are pressuring their banks to pull back, undercutting subsidiaries in East Europe. Athens has ordered Greek banks to pull out of the Balkans.
The sums needed are beyond the limits of the IMF, which has already bailed out Hungary, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus, Iceland, and Pakistan – and Turkey next – and is fast exhausting its own $200bn (€155bn) reserve. We are nearing the point where the IMF may have to print money for the world, using arcane powers to issue Special Drawing Rights.
Its $16bn rescue of Ukraine has unravelled. The country – facing a 12pc contraction in GDP after the collapse of steel prices – is hurtling towards default, leaving Unicredit, Raffeisen and ING in the lurch. Pakistan wants another $7.6bn. Latvia's central bank governor has declared his economy "clinically dead" after it shrank 10.5pc in the fourth quarter. Protesters have smashed the treasury and stormed parliament.
"This is much worse than the East Asia crisis in the 1990s," said Lars Christensen, at Danske Bank.
"There are accidents waiting to happen across the region, but the EU institutions don't have any framework for dealing with this. The day they decide not to save one of these one countries will be the trigger for a massive crisis with contagion spreading into the EU."
Europe is already in deeper trouble than the ECB or EU leaders ever expected. Germany contracted at an annual rate of 8.4pc in the fourth quarter.
If Deutsche Bank is correct, the economy will have shrunk by nearly 9pc before the end of this year. This is the sort of level that stokes popular revolt.
The implications are obvious. Berlin is not going to rescue Ireland, Spain, Greece and Portugal as the collapse of their credit bubbles leads to rising defaults, or rescue Italy by accepting plans for EU "union bonds" should the debt markets take fright at the rocketing trajectory of Italy's public debt (hitting 112pc of GDP next year, just revised up from 101pc – big change), or rescue Austria from its Habsburg adventurism.
So we watch and wait as the lethal brush fires move closer.
If one spark jumps across the eurozone line, we will have global systemic crisis within days. Are the firemen ready?
http://www.telegraph.co.u>kfinance/comment/ambrose>evans_pritchard4623525/F>ailure-to-save-East-Europe-wil>l-lead-to-worldwide-meltdown.html
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