"We will bury you" was not a threat. It was a promise. One that they mean to keep if ever given the opportunity.

Don't trust him in the least.

Respect him as a certifiable badass.

I've always appreciated the following picture. It shows two men, both leaders of their country. Both were professional killers in their youth. Both as statesmen have used their state intelligence and military to engage their enemies. Both have spied on the United States yet one, in my estimation is "Good" and the other is not. Look at the pic, it's not hard to see the similarities and at the same time the vast differences.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: thunderson,

Do I like him? I dunno, but I do know I like him better than I like O'Bama. But I don't trust him. Come to think of it, I never trusted O'Bama either.

Well, he is less bad than his predecessors and has an at least nominal support for the Orthodox faith. So using the 'devil that you know' principle I voted for like. Absolutely like? No.

Richard Pipes' book 'Russia under the Ancient Regime' makes it clear that the Mongol victimization of the Rus has forever fucked their mentality.

From the time he took power until about 2000-2001, I thought, based on my contacts in Russia and with respected academic experts on Russia, that he was doing about as best he could under the circumstances.

At that time I had a nonprofit organization consisting of me and some friends, trying to get funding to start a program to help improve the Russian health care system.

Now I thank God (literally) that my effort resulted in failure, because had I gone to Russia with a bunch of money I would likely have been found—as an acquaintance was—on the ground under a 10-story open window and listed as “suicide”.

Before Putin, Russia had a mafia. Under Putin, the state became the mafia. Putin declared war on the oligarchs who through shady dealings got themselves rich buying state property at a nickel on the dollar. But he gathered all that plunder to himself and his cronies.

Read Bill Browder’s Red Notice for an example of how, under Putin’s direct control, people were killed, tortured, etc. to get at Putin’s enemies.

Putin takes advantage of the Russians’ completely unwarranted sense of superiority over other nations, but all he can do is threaten his neighbors and try to undermine the legitimacy of their governments.

Twenty years after taking power he is putting through a constitutional amendment allowing him to stay in power.

There are virtually no independent mass media in Russia any more, which is a drastic change from the mid-90’s when I lived there.

The KGB once again is listening to calls, reading texts and e-mails, with a capability far beyond anything they had in the Communist days.

I no longer talk or write openly to my friends in Russia.

Fifty years ago I did graduate study in “East-West Relations” at the Free University of Berlin, traveled extensively in Eastern Europe.
Twenty-five years ago I lived in Russia, then worked there as a consultant for about 5 years.
I’ve followed the deterioration of Russia as a free country with great sadness and no satisfaction.

I don't eat it much. But prefer butterscotch myself when I do

Commie? No, more to the fascist end of the spectrum. I really doubt he cares about political ideology. He just wants to maintain his power and status, and he'll crush any one or any thing that gets in his way of doing that.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
The only good commie...

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Commie? No, more to the fascist end of the spectrum. I really doubt he cares about political ideology. He just wants to maintain his power and status, and he'll crush any one or any thing that gets in his way of doing that.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
The only good commie...

Indeed, he's not a commie at all. He's a tyrannical plutocrat who presides over an oligarchy of mafiosi.

Russia and China are crony capitalism at their worst.

I like him about as much as I like his distant predecessor, Joe - which would be not at all.

Thank you for your insights. It is a big country, twice the USA land mass with less than half the population. In the coming centuries, it may take a long spear to keep the bear at bay.

---

https://www.friesian.com/russia.htm

SUCCESSORS OF ROME:
RUSSIA, 862-Present


The Church of Rome fell for its heresy; the gates of the second Rome, Constantinople, were hewn down by the axes of the infidel Turks; but the Church of Moscow, the Church of the New Rome, shines brighter than the sun in the whole universe... Two Romes are fallen, but the third stands fast; a fourth there cannot be.

_{Philotheos (Filofei), 1525, quoted by Colin Wells, Sailing from Byzantium, How a Lost Empire Shaped the World [Delta, Bantam Dell, 2007, p.277]}


I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

_{Winston Churchill, October 1939}


GEORGE SMILEY (ALEC GUINESS): "So how conscious is he?"

TOBE ESTERHASE: "Of us? George, he's Russian, OK? The Russian thinks the butterflies are spying on him."

_{John le Carré [David Cornwell] & John Hopkins, Smiley's People, BBC Television, 1982, Acorn Media, 2002, 2011, Episode Five}

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
I like him about as much as I like his distant predecessor, Joe - which would be not at all.

+1

dictator. period.

------------------------

Tater of Dick

He's not somebody that I'd probably ever sit down for a drink with, but in general I guess I fall into the "At least he's fairly stable" / "Better the devil you know" camp.

quote:

Originally posted by braillediver:
Yes. He's a powerful man who loves his country. What's not to like?

Don't do things to be his enemy.

I watch a great deal of Russian TV and live with a couple E. Ukrainians. He is the leader a country like Russia needs and most of his subjects like or at least respect him.

As do I, respect him......what he pulled off in Crimea was brilliant.

Now....do I trust him to do anything more than what he feels is best for Russia.....nope

"Russia first".....kinda sounds familiar.

Absolutely not.

I'm kind of amazed that as of now there are 24 members on this forum that voted yes. I can understand having a certain type of respect for a powerful man, but like is another thing all together.

quote:

Originally posted by Browndrake:
I'm kind of amazed ....

I wish I were. Throughout history large numbers of people living in liberal* democratic societies have expressed admiration or at least tolerance of foreign† despots. I also don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone say that a “benevolent” dictatorship would be the ideal form of government even if they can’t bring themselves to approve of the Hitlers, Stalins, and Maos of the world. What the latter unfortunately demonstrates is how ignorant such people are of history and human nature. Ironically, such sentiments are even expressed by people who claim to value individual freedom. If I were a dictator, one of the first things I’d do is eliminate the private ownership of firearms because I would know how much of a danger they would be to me after the masses got tired of my “benevolence.”

* “Liberal” in the original sense of the word, not how it’s been perverted by the Left in modern times.

† It’s always foreign despots people approve of for some strange reason, never ones they would like to live under themselves.

Putin is an enemy of the US. Period! He would destroy this country if he had the ability to do so. He doesn't and he knows it so he'll just disrupt our elections and our economy as far as he is able to. Like or respect him? HELL NO!!

Jim

Well, but that takes us back to braillediver's argument - "don't do things to be his enemy".

- if you oppose his fighting artificial brush wars in eastern Europe, you've "done something to be his enemy".

- if you criticize his totalitarian regime, you've "done something to be his enemy".

- if you oppose his little pets like Assad in Syria or Maduro in Venezuela, you've "done something to be his enemy."

- if you accuse him of something he's openly admitted elsewhere like running troll farms, you've "done something to be his enemy".

In short, by that sucker's standard (and there's no other way to put it if you have a spine and insist on thinking for yourself) then anytime Putin does anything, you better not so much as question it, or you've "done something to be his enemy" and you deserve whatever you get.

Honestly, I could at least vaguely understand suffering from that form of neurosis known as "Putin envy" when O was in the White House, but some of the stuff we've seen here is flat-out warped.

Only thing that comes to mind when I see Putin is: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." He is not a true believer in Communism, he's a thug and he'll use whatever ideology it takes to stay in power.

Since no one is personally attacking me (yet) I can probably now clarify the OP was not well worded. "Like" was not the right word to choose. But considering it is a potentially volatile country with 35 different official languages and 100 minority languages, Putin seems to be holding it together fairly well. No one is screaming "Death to America" over there. If Trump asked him to discretely sink a North Korean ship for us, I think he'd do it. We're talking about a country which has been there for 1500 years. He has big shoes to fill.

OK, time for Q&A:

How do you know someone is communist?
They read Marx and Lenin.

How do you know someone is anti-communist?
They understand Marx and Lenin.