dropping conditioning

[click image for 21 minute video]

I think this is interesting viewing. Frontline is exposing Russian patriotic youth camps in a manner that might hark up visions of the Hitler Youth, or even God Camp, to American viewers. Some months ago, I read about Garry Kasparov and his thing against Putin in The New Yorker, and was shocked to find myself disappointed in Kasparov's mental acumen. I'm sure you can see how this would be. He was the world champion chess player, after all, not really a game for dopes, but the notion that he is a fascist tool kept popping into my head as I was reading that piece.

You might recall the Soviets being crazy for Americana of the most modern stripe, and their glee when these goodies finally were open to them, right before the abject chaos put it all out of their reach again. I think Kasparov's privileged position relative to all this has left him shilling for corporate interests without, probably, even realizing that's what he's doing. You'll note how the most vociferous voices for "democracy" -- besides neocons -- in this world are, say, unseated plutocrats of Cuba and Venezuela, the ones who want to go back to starve their countrymen for profit again... put things back in the proper natural order. Those are the types who have been Kasparov's best friends in the West since his chess days.

Well, what happens if the man who pulled Russia out of the maw of starvation by Darwinian forces is really dedicated to keeping it that way? Keeping his countrymen out of the maw of starvation. What is the difference between bands of mafiosi relieving the population of sustenance and democratically elected corporatists doing the same? A more sustainable illusion of order? What happens if Putin is trying to teach those kids not to fall for the gewgaws being held out to them by plutocrats who will suck off every penny of worth from them should they gain a foothold in Russian politics?

It's been difficult for me to get here in my head because I have been conditioned my whole life to believe in a kind of personal freedom that everyone calls "democracy". But it's not democracy at all! Democracy is majority rule and has nothing to do with personal freedom. What I've grown up believing in is something more akin to equality than democracy. Is Prime Minister Putin really a dictator who means to use the people of his nation toward greater glory for himself and his friends?

That is a real question. Is he?

I know he's given amnesty to some of the billionaires who worked Russia's state of chaos to such advantage, but that is conditioned on them keeping completely the hell out of politics, which screams to me he is serious about keeping fascism out of Russia. I imagine that there are some who are so helpful to him that they enjoy a privileged status because of it, but that would seem fairly universal. Favoritism is very hard to keep down, but is he abusing that power? And IS he installing a system that raises the masses from abjection only to leave those masses at the mercy of the rich? Or is he trying to put into play something with the social benefits but not the drawbacks of communism? Is he trying to work out a kinder capitalism?

In this video we see a Russian version of "Meet The Press" that looks identical to ours to me. They complain in here that opposition is being black-listed and stifled, and would that be in any way analogous to our black-listing and stifling communists and socialists and leftists who aren't even very left?

I mean, didn't we just hear the other day about these assholes, Medvedev and Putin, curtailing foreign investment in their energy industry? Are they trying to start a war! What could be behind that? Do you think maybe they want to keep the wealth from Russian resources in Russia, for Russians?

Does this make them bad guys?