Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Putinism

"Putinism" is the new buzzword.
Fareed Zakaria writes the “crucial elements of Putinism ..[are]... nationalism, religion, social conservatism, state capitalism and government domination of the media. They are all, in some way or another, different from and hostile to modern Western values of individual rights, tolerance, cosmopolitanism and internationalism.” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, Xi Jinping in China, Turkish President Recep Tayyip are all variations of this theme. Erdogan Narendra Modi, leader of the Hindu nationalist party who was denied entry into the United States for a decade for complicity in or toleration of a massacre of Muslims, is now prime minister of India. Hungary's Viktor Orban has said he sees in Russia a model for his own “illiberal state.” The National Front's Marine Le Pen wants to bring France into a new Gaullist Europe, stretching “from the Atlantic to the Urals,” with France seceding from the EU superstate.
“Of the 24 right-wing populist parties that took about a quarter of the European Parliament seats in May elections, Political Capital lists 15 as ‘committed' to Russia,” writes the AP. and they “share key views — advocacy of traditional family values, belief in authoritarian leadership, a distrust of the U.S., and support for strong law and order measures.”
So, Buchanan asks, "if America is a better country today than she has ever been, why are so many, East and West, recoiling from what we offer now?" (From Pat Buchanan)

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