I am sick
and tired from the anti-Putin (and anti-Russian) propaganda conducted by our “free”
Western media. This propaganda is so massive that it is almost impossible to find
people in my circle of friends and colleagues who are not convinced that Putin
is an evil dictator, who endangers the World peace! People are so convinced by
this propaganda that I am afraid to contradict them.
Here is in
short what I think of Putin: apart from Mikhail Gorbachev, Putin is the most
modern, and in terms of values and actions – the most pro-Western, Russian leader
in the last century! It maybe even in the entire Russian history, but I am not
so familiar with the tsarist history (before 1917 Russia was a monarchy).
Every time
I dare to express my opinion in front of other people, it is in reaction to
some nasty remark against Russia or its President. I usually ask how do they
reached their opinions about Putin? Is it just accepting what every influential
politician and journalist is telling them, or is it because they have evidence
that Putin is the villain they say he is? I usually tell them that years ago I
started to doubt what I was hearing/reading about Putin because it sounded not
well-founded and contradicted what was said about Putin in earlier years. For a
long time, I would fact-check every anti-Putin article that I came across with,
and in each occasion, I found that there was no evidence for the accusations or
Putin’s words were taken out of context. After doing this for a long time
(probably about a year) I made up my mind, i.e. I decided that it was all a
propaganda, and I stopped wasting my time – whenever I read something about
Putin, I knew that the truth was most likely the opposite…
So far,
nobody, absolutely no one, has shown me anti-Putin article based on reliable
sources and proven facts. Almost all anti-Putin articles are written by propagandists,
or journalists – not by serious scholars or experts on Russia or Russian
politics. Unfortunately, by now there is so much dirt and misinformation
created by the leading Western media, that every new publication can refer to any
number of previously published rubbish. There is so much of it, that the
propaganda has become the accepted truth. No wonder people cannot believe me.
How can I possibly know more than the editors of New York Times, BBC, or Dagens
Nyheter?!
I do not
know Putin as a person. He maybe a villain, but before I accept this I would
like to see a proof. So far I have not seen any. It is much easier to judge
Putin as a president, because his words and actions can be seen by anyone. I
dare say that I have read/listened a lot of Putin’s words, as well as his
actions. And on that front too, my judgement is largely positive. In my opinion
he is more modest, straightforward, and trustworthy than any of the big names
on the Western political arena! Unfortunately, this too is difficult to see,
because the actions of President Putin are not visible to most people in the
West – what they see is the caricature of Putin that is given to them by the
Western media.
For those
of you, willing to question the prevailing wisdom in our “free” and “democratic”
world, here are a few trustworthy sources on Putin and Russia:
- An article by a true journalist Robert Parry: The Existential Madness of Putin-Bashing
- An article by Natylie Baldwin: Russia’s Very Different Reality
- A book by the British scholar Richard Sakwa: Putin: Russia's Choice
- An audio discussion with the greatest American expert on Russia - Stephen F. Cohen: The Imperative of De-Demonizing Vladimir Putin
- And Oliver Stone's The Putin Interviews (the link is from the Swedish SVT Play and most likely will not work from outside Sweden)
