I realize it is originally in German.

http://www.rp-online.de/politik/warum-wir-russen-wladimir-putin-so-grossartig-finden-aid-1.4670454

The Rheinische Post is what we get delivered every day, so I never thought to go look for an online link. A Google translation will probably get you fairly close to what it said, although I sometimes think they farm out some of their translation services to the same people in China that translate their menus.

Toughness is a quality that may required of both belligerence and tolerance.

Funny how the toughness of tolerance is only good if it's described as a quality of a dead hero.

... that they want to belong to Russia".

So what? they are free to move to Russia, they are not free to take land.

I'm just saying.

Like how Reagan made it "feel good to be an American again" even though he ruined out economy, our foreign policy and our credibility worldwide (except to Margaret Thatcher).

Just like so many Americans did with Reagan.

and even Reagan (the "morning in America" BS) in the eyes of some. I think that support/nostalgia is much more prevalent on the right but some of it exists everywhere.

Most 'strong leaders' have been popular because they 'restore pride in or fear of' the country. That is usually based on a strong military if not actual invasions.

From the OP:

You could substitute any of the leaders above for "Putin" and get the same sentiments expressed by people in those countries at the time.

It always seems to boil down to nationalism/patriotism and "us vs them". "Us" (Russians, Germans, Italians, Chinese, Americans) against "Them" (the US, EU, France, the UK, the West, Islamic terrorists). Heck even Bush was popular during the wave of patriotism that followed 9/11. He played the patriotism, "us vs them" card very well, although it cause him big problems in the long run.

Saddam was wined and dined by the west, built up by the west, then weakened with sanctions. He was no real threat but we took him out anyway. Now Iraq is overrun by religious extremists.

Gadaffi was wined and dined by the west, capitulated to its demands, and look what happened to him. Now Libya is overrun by religious extremists.

Assad was wined and dined by the west. He doesn't pose any threat to us but we still support religious extremists that run amok in Syria causing chaos.

All three of these countries are in ruins (and there are about half a dozen more countries that we have an influence in that are basket cases).

Do you seriously expect Putin (and the Russian people) to trust a military bloc with this record?

Not to mention our monolithic media that speaks with one voice when it decides to demonize something or someone. (And a complete lack of democratic or judicial accountability for our foreign policy).

(We see DUers cheering on the MSM when they demonize Putin but then act surprised when it turns on them and demonizes the things they believe in. I don't give two hoots about Putin or Russia. I've never been there and never going to go there. But the point of the MIC and MSM is to divide and conquer and take down anything in its path, so we shouldn't be surprised if there is a reaction against that).

view things through a United States lens. The whole world does not wake up every day thinking hey! What can I do to advance American interests, and not the interests of my own country?!
Plus, we do some really horrendous things in other countries, to other peoples. Yes, other countries can be just as horrendous, but that cancels nothing out.

Plus, it's right down the road from me (globally speaking), and is (or should be) an important trading partner. Plus, environmentally, they're a wreck, and need help to preserve their vast wilderness and resources. Lake Baikal has 20% of the world's surface fresh water plus some unique (to the area) animals and plants found nowhere else.

Putin knows full well he has no military invasion to fear from the west. He surrounds himself with loyal money men, destroys non-loyal money men, and make uncomfortable journalists disappear.

A westernized Ukraine had an economic potential for Russia, but also a political liability. As a newly westernized trading partner, he could have gotten Russia richer by letting it happen. He could also have a westernized basket case slowly turn prosperous on his doorstep, though given the corruption in place, it probably would take the Ukraine longer than Bulgaria to get there.

I think the young woman is exactly right--it's for the glory, and making Russians feel proud to be Russians again. A good friend of mine was chief correspondent for West German radio news in Russia for 5 years. It was during the end of the Yeltsin years, when a comparatively young Putin was setting up his power play. He has a Russian girlfriend who visits here, but continues to live in Russia, where he spends his summers. He says the country is essentially a wealthy basket case desperately trying to convince itself of glory days that aren't--sort of what would probably happen to us if the Republicans had complete power for thirty years straight. Brandish a gun, wave the flag, I'm so proud to be (an American/a Russian--take yer pick).

Because I think Putin really is afraid of influence from the West.

Some is political. The white ribbon movement terrified him. The "color revolutions" scare him. He really thinks that the West wants to carve up the country. In a society where government, economics, and culture are thoroughly merged it's hard to see that government can be divorced, to some extent, from business. The merging we typically call "corruption," and under Putin corruption blossomed after declining significantly by the end of El'tsyn's mess.

But such thinking and the fear of color revolutions plays into the dichotomy he sees--he's a nationalist, and to reduce the level of Russianism is a serious problem. Russianism is codified, and it's the same kind of thing you see in the French idea of Frenchness--food, language, etc. Except that in Russia it's not a bit of a cultural trend, it's a dominant theme. Back in the late '80s and into the '90s the word "russkost'" was bandied about, before vanishing into the abyss. It didn't vanish--it just became part of the wallpaper. It's the russkii mir, it's the kul'tura, and you saw not just ultranationalists but even well-off educated people that were otherwise liberals concerned about the decline in cultural standards. The norms for behavior, literature, language all shifted--just as they did after the Revolution, as the PTB were either ousted or diluted. In the end, while pronunciation styles and vocabulary largely changed, it was the avant guard of literature and culture that so supported the Bol'sheviks that lost first, as the "progressives" reverted to klassika in literature and developed the leaden, grey sotsrealism genre. Stalin was in many ways an archconservative counterrevolutionary.

I want to take a deeper dive on te culture now.

It's the path of least resistance. Intellectually, it requires little to no effort, and leaves more time for football.

a modern undemocratic leader I have ever read. All I read was "strength", "strong" "national pride", blah, blah..that was the whole justification for Putin. You would think this was written in the 1940's.

Barbaric.

And therefore very much worth noting. If you read between the lines, I don't think she was singing Putin's praises so much as trying to lay out for western readers why he is so popular in Russia right now, even when the Russians themselves aren't seeing any improvement in their lives from it.

Some guy is running warships along your coast with no justification, you could do worse than to try to get an insight on what is making him tick.

It's no secret the "strong man" psychology has a grip on most of the planet. It's still backward and destructive.

I assume most Russians would say NO but at the same time Russians are almost conditioned through their history to view suffering and struggling as a badge of honor especially when it comes to "keeping your chin up" when dealing with the United States. "Never let them see you sweat".

People are idiots. When an economy improves, it improves in certain ways. High employment tends to be the last link in the chain. For it to improve, people doing the hiring have to be convinced that it's prudent to hire more. Before they do that, they have to expand their facilities. Before that, they have to wring every bit of production out of their old facilities and have their workers not just full time but putting in overtime. They need to have ways worked out of getting more materials, transporting and selling their products. They need to secure financing, domestic and abroad. Permits and approvals.

Last in line ... New workers.

In El'tsyn's Russia things were improving. Unemployment was high, life expectancy down, but after years of ineptitude corruption was down, financing was increasing, new business starts were up, confidence was up, investment was up, and unemployment was beginning to decline. They'd recovered from the great social, political, and even more vast economic upheaval that was the breakup of the USSR--losing markets, suppliers, market share, financing, etc., etc., etc.

Then Putin was elected, the last link in the chain blossomed as all the groundwork for new hires had been laid, and Putin was given the credit for the new, great economy--and was proud to take credit. The factory that was started 12 months before the election ... His doing. The loans negotiated 18 months before he took office ... His doing. That's what politicians do--anything that happens the day after they take office (or even the day after they get elected) is theirs, but only if it's good. The economy hasn't been as bad since then, but then again, the country hasn't broken up, either, so there's no reason to think it should be that bad again.


What's important is to resist humiliation or revel in it. There's not much in between. You're tsar' or you're shit. The only other option is that you're tsar' but mistaken for shit, so you need to fight to make sure that those confusing you for shit realize that they're the real shit. As long as you can blame somebody, anybody, for your mistakes you're okay. It's why the first and most important sign of political defeat is samokritika--if you criticize yourself in a way that really does entail self-criticism (and not a public display that everybody not only knows but says is utterly meaningless), then you can't blame somebody else and you really are shit.

It was meant to explain to the west the mentality that makes someone like Putin so popular in Russia, something we often have a hard time understanding. I'm interested, myself, to hear what's behind a country that embraces such a leader, knowing full well what an asshole he is.

By the way, did you catch the outdoor meal at the G20 summit in Brisbane? Guess who was eating at a table all by himself? West German TV was gloating. Putin will say nothing and do something horrible, and we'll wonder why.

Mostly we pity you. You are clearly very unhappy.

You have chosen not to earn respect but to coerce the pretense of it by blocking anything that might subject your nation to the ordinary process of criticism. You perceive the absence of criticism as respect. It's not respect. It's just silence.

And then you remember that you had no patience with other nations doing the same thing. You know that you are cheating. But you don't want the cheating to be your fault, because that diminishes you in your own mind. And you think your mind is the same as everyone else's mind. You think your lack of respect for yourself, your cheating, and your self-loathing is everyone else's fault. So you go back to the drawing board because you know deep in your heart that you are dependent on other nations for your understanding of yourself and try once more to get them to respect you.

But you've spent so long having no respect for yourself and everyone else that you've forgotten what respect really is or what it feels like. So you just go back to the coercion.... over and over again...

The rest of us know that, today, you cannot accept yourself. You have forgotten.

We will wait. One day you will look back at your cathedrals, which are the most beautiful buildings humanity has ever constructed, and your powerful and universally worshipped literature, your extraordinary classical composers and your total dominance of that discipline, the first machine in space and the first man in space... and realise that respect is an emotion, not a resource. It is felt or it is not. It is freely offered or it is worthless.

You were never so foolish looking as when you were defensive. You were always at your greatest when you allowed yourself to think and to feel. No-one came close to you.

Fear is not respect. Confuse the two and you get Vladimir Putin and Sean Hannity.

They don't care if we feel a deep sense of respect for them.

Respect is what we do. When we're afraid to say that they've invaded the Crimea because we don't want to offend them or--shudder--actually confront them, it's a sign of respect. Coerced respect is respect. Unfelt respect is respect. Respect is observable.

There is no tradition of gratuitously saying good things about others out of just respect--this is admiration, it's adoration, it's self-serving flattery, it's many things. You show respect by giving them free rein, by not getting in their way, by doing what they want, giving them what they want. You may say bad things, but actions speak much louder than words. Often saying bad things shows more respect than flattery does.

Your definition is no more valid than theirs. And right now, theirs is the one that matters (and, as far as they're concerned, will always matter).

Coerced respect is respect. Unfelt respect is respect. Respect is observable.

No. No more than coerced love is love or a coerced apology is an apology or coerced laughter is laughter or coerced kindness is kindness or coerced consent is consent. Coerced "respect" is coercion, not respect. Your assertion that unfelt respect is respect is exactly as meaningful as saying that unfelt love is love.

Respect isn't a behaviour. Respect is a feeling.

Perhaps you're not familiar with that feeling? It it is similar to admiration, receptivity, reflection, open-ness, a desire to pay attention, not a desire to do what you're told. It is a subtle word that indicates the recognition of something serious, something of value, something that matters, its meaning is not as gross as the simple recognition of a threat.

Are you American? Forgive my forwardness, I have noticed that many from countries like the US are also confused about the meaning of the word "respect". It is often used in such countries country as a replacement for "obedience" or "submission" or "silence" or "acquiesence". It's typical in authoritarian countries for words that mean different things to converge on single meanings. The English language has different words for all these things for a reason. I am from the United Kingdom, the originator of the word. In my country it has not drifted from its original meaning.

"Your definition is no more valid than theirs." Yes it is, in exactly the same way that my definition of the word "literally" is more valid than that of someone who uses that word to mean "extremely". Respect is not fear. People who think it is don't understand English. Supposing that this is an "ethnocentric" position makes exactly as much sense as suggesting that someone observing that the phrase "enhanced interrogation" is nothing more than a weasel phrase for "torture" is guilty of not being open to new ideas.

They don't care if we feel a deep sense of respect for them.

According to the article - they do.

"As the situation in the Ukraine intensified, so did the support for Putin's policies. Foremost, because every Russian is deeply convinced that the Crimea historically belongs to Russia. In Europe and America, on the other hand, most people are convinced that it is about an annexation of Ukrainian territory. Personally, I don't believe that. I believe Putin when he says that the people of the Crimea decided that they want to belong to Russia.


So many countries around the world talk against Russian actions in Ukraine but very few talk out against the Israelis when they try to grab land away from the Palestinians and other Arab countries.

If you want to read a pretty interesting book, read Thirteen Days in September: Carter Begin and Sadat at Camp David by Lawrence Wright.

In 1967, Israel was successful in showing themselves to be the feisty underdog, heavily outnumbered by bloodthirsty enemies who wanted to extinguish them from the face of the earth. Putin wouldn't have a very easy time pulling that one with the Ukraine.

You missed the general assembly resolutions, the calls for a special status for the Green Line, the vast pronouncements that Israeli settlements in the west bank are illegal and, at best, will have to have their status negotiated on a land-swap basis?

Not a lot of Israeli land-grabbing from Syria or Lebanon that didn't involve open warfare, often a continuation of Arab-initiated warfare. And even then, the Golan Heights are still considered occupied territory. (Let's leave the Sheba'a Farms to the side as something the great and glorious Assad managed to finagle, since when it was Syrian-occupied Lebanese territory nobody really cared ... nor did anybody care about it for quite a while after it was considered Israeli-occupied Syrian territory as long as there was clearly Lebanese territory south of the Litani under Israeli occupation to pitch a fit over; only when Lebanon needed a continued land-based reason to hate Israeli and reject the very possibility of a peace treaty until the Jews were properly humiliated did anybody notice the Sheba'a Farms.)

And there's still the special case of Jerusalem, which is annexed no-man's land as far as the UN is concerned. Even if nobody really cared when Jordan annexed it and ethnically cleansed it. but only when the Jews annexed it and, well, didn't ethnically cleanse it. (By the way, the word is "hypocrisy".)

the aid of the Palestinians the way the Republicans would love to take on Putin to keep him out of Ukraine. There is a greater chance of aid being provided to Ukraine then Palestine.

Talk is cheap. Action costs.

Just another reason for me to hate Russians.

It would seem that unless its culture starts evolving Russia is incapable of being a positive influence on the rest of the world.

They've never really had much experience with democracy. They suffer under fascism, but it keeps them "safe." Cheney played that tune very successfully after 9/11, and Putin was watching. I don't think Russia has evolved to the point of wanting to be a positive influence on the world. Outside of a few well-traveled, enlightened intellectuals, they prefer to be respected/feared.

When rich Russians go on vacation here in the west (or in the Middle East), for example, they order huge quantities of food at restaurants. They nibble at the food until they're full (or drunk), and leave 90% of it on the table. It's not about the food. It's about showing how much of it they can afford. It's a mentality we have a hard time grasping because most of us don't feel a need to do this. We don't consider it "showing off" to leave 90% of what you order at a restaurant on the table. We consider it boorish. They, on the other hand, don't understand why we do.

Putin is an evil facist that is trying to show what a big man he is. He could make Russia into a real powerhouse but because of his mistakes in judgement he is destroying Russia's ecomony.

He has reignited LGBT persecutions.

The article is a genuine attempt to explain to the Germans why, despite all his negatives, Russia stands behind Putin. I think we need to try to understand the mentality behind it, or we'll never figure out how to deal with it successfully.

He is not tough, at all.

He is a prick who uses other people's toughness and bravery to fight his fights.

He belongs in the American Republican party, he fits perfectly with them especially the KGB part.

A tough guy is someone who kills Osama Bin Laden and then gets attacked for doing it by assholes and doesnt respond, that is toughness.

A tough guy is someone who works to reverse an economic nightmare unlike anything this country has seen since the Great Depression

I could go on and and on with examples of why Obama is actually a tough and successful man and Putin is a fucking punk

full of other people's kids you can send to do your fighting.

That's not tough.

Pravda (Hearts) Tea Party: American Conservatism Embraced By Russian Right-Wing And Vice Versa


"There you have it. Obama is an anti-Christian, Muslim lover, while Putin is the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan. A devout, law and order Christian who can inspire the Teabagging masses. Putin is their 21st century savior who can restore America and the world. The article even includes emails that the author received from Americans wishing Putin could be the U.S. president. And to top it all off, it closes with an evangelical sermon lambasting the "lamestream" media and exalting Putin's piety and the glory of Christ's guidance to the "Truth." [FYI: Pravda, in Russian, means truth]."

MOre..
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/18/1239872/-Pravda-Hearts-Tea-Party-American-Conservatism-Embraced-By-Russian-Right-Wing-And-Vice-Versa

He's full of shit, we all know it, but we love him anyway.

Everyone laughed at Obama for imposing sanctions with Europe, made mom jeans jokes... but Putin has essentially been handcuffed since. Contrary to what McCain and the hawks say, dropping bombs the moment someone does something you don't like is not the answer to ever geopolitical issue.

of RW amerikans mind set.... ummmm sorry, Russian mind set.

It's a minor difference, but a difference nonetheless.

"because you're a bunch of idiots."

Majority Leader, such a comment might elicit the Russian equivalent of "look who's talking!"

suppressing Putin.

Our leader President Obama is not like that.. that's who I voted for.

really pretty awful. I guess i respect what they've been trying to do, but that was really just, not very good. I say that as a fan of punk, metal, protest music, performance art... anything you might try to characterize that performance/video/song as.

They understood each other, even if they had slightly differing methods. Hitler would have reigned supreme in Europe if he hadn't attacked Russia. Stalin was the smarter one--He allied himself with us, where Hitler allied himself with Mussolini and the Japanese militarists. It was the wrong choice.

for reason...

man, I've got be a macho man!!!

She does a good job explaining the mindset of the people in Russia that seem to worship him.

She's not writing some fan mail. She's trying to explain to her German hosts how it is that someone who cares so little for democracy or the general welfare of his people can be so popular. It's not a lot different from why Reagan was so popular with so many Americans. "Feel good to be America/Russian" for many people trumps actually being better off or having true freedoms. She's not telling us how wonderful it is, she's just trying to lay out for us why it's so in today's Russia.

Because I am of the opinion that there is very little Obma can do wrong! . I find it funny how he is now "pulling Putins" domestically - and the same Right Wing Pundits that have all but fellated Putin for his behavior have their drawers in a twist over Obama standing on principle.

And Fox news will never explore what this woman has written because they can't explain why Putin is good but Obama is bad.

A friend of mine should have (in my opinion) been selected for HHS Secretary when Obama formed his cabinet. Not because he's a friend, but because he was supremely qualified for the job. Still is, really. To boot (but not part of his qualification), he was also THE person most responsible for our electoral victories in 2006 and 2008. His departure from the Party scene was the result of a personal vendetta on the part of Rahm Emmanuel, and Obama should have overruled Emmanuel on this, period. I'm sure there's more to the story that anyone outside of the White House isn't aware of, so I'll have to leave it at that, but I think the whole story of the ACA would have been different if Emmanuel hadn't gotten his way.

Rahm is the worst!