How Did We Become Vladimir Putin's Bitch?

Let's look at presidential history through the years, shall we? First we had Harry Truman who understood full-well how evil communism and by extension the Soviet leadership was. He stood up to them where he could including sending our troops to fight a war against their proxies in Korea.

Dwight Eisenhower checked them where he could and the Soviets knew the old warhorse was not one to be trifled with.

Kennedy stared down Kruschev during the Cuban missile crisis and reinforced the standing of America in the world. When their East German proxies built a wall in Berlin, he flew food in.

Johnson fought communism in Vietnam as did Nixon, however Nixon didn't quite have the balls call them out as often as he should have. He settled for some amorphous thing called "detente".

Ford was a lame duck from the beginning and doesn't count.

But Carter does and he was one who believed all the hype about Soviet power. He gutted the intelligence services thus leaving us blind to the fragility of the Soviet scheme. However, when pressed, he stood up to them for the most part.

Reagan? Well we all know that Reagan knew all along they were a house of cards. He tricked them into spending untold billions they didn't have (SDI comes to mind), backed the Mujahideen against them, gave them the finger at Reykjavik, called on Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" and generally made a nuisance of himself whenever it concerned issues Soviet.

George H. W. Bush cheered on Lech Walesa when he rose up in Gdansk, celebrated when the wall came down in Berlin and watched with glee as satellite after satellite broke away and the USSR was reduced to the CIS and then just Russia.

Clinton had it kind of easy trying to usher the new Russia into the democratic and capitalistic world. He didn't back down often.

George W. Bush tried to get friendly with Putin and his butt-buddy Medvedev and generally checked Russians power.

But now we have Nobel Peace Prize winner and the Smartest Guy to Ever Become President in office. He of the mis-translated "reset" button and off the record comments about appeasing Putin when he got in his second term dutifully "transmitted" to Vlad by Medvedev. Obama was the man who was going to change the world just by the force of his sparkling intellect and personality. Except for a few things; he was a community organizer in Chicago (and based on the sad state of that city did a pretty fucking shitty job of it), a state senator who voted present a lot, a senator who took a stand on excatly nothing (or anything he now believes) and has completely fucked up our entire foreign policy (with help from Hillary and Kerry).

His latest foreign policy foray has to do with chemical weapons supposedly dropped by Bashar Assad on his own people but there's no definitive proof. Obama went right to the bomb them from long distance card (learned from the master; Slick Willy). But Congress didn't agree and the world didn;t agree and the American people sure as hell didn;t agree. So Obama joined up with...France. The Bestest President For Ever & Ever couldn't even cobble together a coalition that included Nicaragua and Burkina Faso.

So his great foreign policy led us to the point where bombing were threatened including threats of the genius 'constitutional law professor" plowing ahead without congressional approval. But an off-the-cuff remark by that other liberal genius John Kerry was pounced on by the Russians and now they've not only marginalized Obama but have taken over the role of strong nation in the Middle East. Hell, we are at the point that Putin had an open letter to the American people published in the NY Times (about time a fucking Soviet actually got to put their name on the byline instead of having to use pseudonyms). Putin belittled Obama and called out American exceptionalism. In other words, Putin made Obama and by extension all of the US his bitch.

I don't like being Putin's bitch. I like beating Putin at spycraft and watching as his navy rusts on the shoreline. Instead he's gained back a good amount of power Russia lost when the Soviet Union was swept into the dustbin of history. All because Obama is soft and is hell-bent on making America in the glowing image of 1970's France.

Watch this video of Obama when he thinks he's not on mic. What message do you really think Medvedev "transmitted" to Putin? I'm guessing it's something akin to "damn comrade, if this guy was around in the 80's instead of Reagan, we'd still be the Soviet Union and own half of eastern Europe still.

Obama Gains Another Crucial Endorsement

We all know the NY Times, Washington post, LA Times and USA Today will endorse Obama. Today we found out the paper that all those media outlets sound like is giving their endorsement as well:

So, in an op-ed today posted on Pravda's website, the infamous former Soviet newspaper writes, "Electing Mitt Romney as the next President of the United States of America would be like appointing a serial paedophile as a kindergarten teacher, a rapist as a janitor at a girls' dormitory or a psychopath with a fixation on knives as a kitchen hand. His comments on Russia are a puerile attempt at making the grand stage and boy, did he blow it..."

Not that it will sway any voters who actually read Pravda because they are all commies who will vote for Obama anyway.

The Soviets are back, if not in name, in ideology with Putin's resumption of leadership. At least Obama won't have to bow while bending over for Mad Vlad since bowing is not a Russian custom.

Politicizing the Hunger Games

I have to admit that the Suzanne Collin's penned Hunger Games is among one of my favorite books. It was written for teens but is not on a level that is seen in that genre. It's a brutal book but one that makes no real judgments and leaves politics alone forcing one to make their own decisions and observations. The third in the series was indeed more political but not overtly so.

While reading the book, one doesn't have to be political, only to cheer one conflicted girl as she battles to the death in a morbid reality show in the future.

The book is set in the future in a post-apocalyptic America renamed Penam. The different areas of the country are broken down into districts numbering 12 with each supplying raw materials to the Capitol--the ruling city. District 13 is supposedly the district where nuclear fallout still exists and no one is to enter. Katniss Everdeen, her mother and sister Prim live in District 12, which encompasses modern day West Virginia and possibly Kentucky and Ohio as well. They are the coal mining district.

Every year, an even occurs called The Reaping where one boy and one girl from each district aged 12-18 are selected to fight in a kill or be killed televised battle. Prim is selected, Katniss takes her place. That's a brief synopsis and if you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I knew upon reading the book that it would be a huge hit and also wondered how the media would spin it. Well, we have our first glimpse thanks to the hopelessly liberal Inquirer. Here's the headline and story by Steven Rea:

'The Hunger Games': A fantasy film reflecting reality

And what reality would that be? You guessed it:

Yes, it's kid-lit about the 1 percent vs. the 99, about the weird spectacle of reality TV, about kids killing kids.

Weird, Suzanne Collins was thinking of the occupiers back in 2008 when this book was published? Most of the occupiers were living in their parents basement back then or getting a degree in Advanced LGBT Studies or something. This is such a ridiculous tie-in that I just chuckled until I saw where Mr. Rea was going with this following the same tack liberals always take when writing.

You see, in Rea's eyes, the 1% are living in the big leading city while the 99% are out in the hinterlands supplying all the rich. That sounds exactly like America in 2012, doesn't it? The connection is such a stretch that Rea not only has be clowned himself but also shows that he never really understood the book in the first place. Sad that a feature writer in a large daily had trouble getting the gist of a teen book, but I digress.

If one wants to go down that road, let's take it to it's conclusion then. Let's see; numerous districts, a massive police state, execution or other punishment for those who don't obey, the rich living in luxury in the central city and a massive disinformation campaign about the nation's enemies. Not to mention constant oppression to keep the people in line and stop rebellion. Now what does that sound like to you Mr. Rea? Perhaps a political system that was dumped in the dustbin of history in the early 1990's hopefully never to be resurrected?

Our heroine was anything but a modern day liberal as seen in the occupy movement, she abhorred the government and wanted nothing more than to be left alone. She hated the state and blamed it for the death of her father. Instead of toeing the line and giving herself to the government, she fought them in her own ways. She hunted illegally and mastered a weapon, she believed in free thought and the the strength of her family. She sought to survive by her wits and not rely on the oppressive regime to take care of her. She believed in freedom and fought to bring down the leadership that ruled by force and death.

Does that sound like a liberal to you Mr. Rea? It sounds more like a libertarian-conservative to me. Reliant on yourself and not the government: check. Learning to use weapons to survive and defend yourself when threatened: check. Wishing only to be left to make ones way in the world without government interference: check. I could go on and on and none of what Katniss represents can be described as liberal.

It's funny, Rea only mentions the 1% in the headline and in a passing sentence but being biased, he needed to get something in there proving his lefty bona fides. Unfortunately for him and is so often the case, what Mr. Rea thinks liberals are versus the reality of the situation is as wide as the difference between a truck driver and Alec Baldwin or the 99% and the 1%.

Mad Vlad Bringing Back Cold War Strategy

There were many features built into the Soviet style of government. Collective farming, purges, famines and anemic productivity to name just a few. But the key to keeping the populace in check was anti-Americanism and the conduit for distributing it was the TASS news agency. The KGB or other agencies would send a report to TASS that would paint the Soviet leadership in a good light and Americans in a bad one.

Unfortunately, many western papers were littered with communist sympathizers and would play the game exactly as the Soviets wanted. Hell, just read what was written by useful idiot Walter Duranty of the NY Times to get an idea how it worked in American papers (and still does in many respects).

It was Soviet policy to blame America for every bad thing in the USSR and it was a winning strategy because the totalitarian regimes could limit information seeping into the republics. A melt-down at Chernobyl could easily have been reported as an American act of sabotage. It was easy to do and they did it with relish.

Unfortunately for the ruling communists, the system that so many sympathizers said would last longer than the American system, it was unsustainable and a coalition of Reagan, Thatcher and to a point Pope John Paul II weakened it to the point of collapse.

So now we pass into the third decade since the Soviet Union imploded and we see not a country led by communism but one led by a hybrid thugocracy made up of former commies and gangsters. The promise of capitalism was never realized due to the inherent paranoid nature of the Russian psyche.

Vladimir Putin had his time in charge of Russia and made things demonstrably worse. He anointed his successor Medvedev while still holding the reins and now wants to make his comeback. So what's his strategy? The same as it was when he was at KGB:

MOSCOW — A nasty spate of anti-Americanism set off by Vladimir V. Putin has grown into waves of attacks aimed at the new American ambassador and Russian opposition leaders, raising questions about the future of U.S.-Russian relations.

The attacks started just before the December parliamentary elections and have intensified as the March 4 presidential vote approaches. Although widely viewed as aimed primarily at a domestic audience, they have grown shriller and more aggressive, provoking debate about whether Russia is deliberately giving a cold shoulder to President Obama’s effort to promote more productive relations.

A main target of the attacks is Michael McFaul, the new ambassador, a longtime democracy advocate and Russia expert who as a top aide to Obama has been an architect of what the White House calls a “reset’’ with Moscow.

The anti-American campaign bears trademark Soviet and KGB thinking, reflecting the mindset of many of the high-level officials appointed by Putin as well as their efforts to protect their power and privileges from the gathering opposition.

Hmm, how's that whole "reset" thing working for you now, Obama?

Putin knows that Russia has lost immense influence and China has made enormous gains because of it. He's knows that a Russia leading the charge against the current superpower and reclaiming the mantle as the nation blunting American imperialism could put Russia in a position it never had before, a strong central government but now one with the ability to exploit newly discovered resources.

Putin doesn't want to "reset" relations, he wants to go back to where they were. With a weakening western Europe coming apart from six-decades of socialism, Putin sees his chance to reclaim the leadership role and reestablish state control over everything. Putin sees McFaul as an enemy as he does every American (except maybe those who still prattle on about how great the Soviet system was) and wants nothing more than to have his old scapegoat back that he can blame everything on. In other wards, he wants Cold War II.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

The ultimate finger was given to the oppressive Soviet Union twenty years ago today when Germans and the rest of the world said enough:
Our president couldn't bring himself to attend such a momentous event because it would have overshadowed his greatness I guess.

Must-Reads of the Day

Here's what you should be reading:

-A devsastating take-down of those that Lenin supposedly called "useful idiots". Academic apologist's have been whitewashing Soviet oppression for decades led by Katrina vanden Heuvel's rag The Nation.

-Abortion kills more African-American's than 7-leading causes of death for the general population. Margaret Sanger's eugenistic dream has become reality.

-American's feel pretty much like the est of the world about that Obama Nobel prize.

-Hmmmm. British nuke specialist dies in fall at UN building in Vienna. He was working on the Iranian situation.