Cyrill Vatomsky, Where All Politics Are Global

Well, I know I have been neglecting my shows and my blog, and have not posted anything since August. And for that I am profoundly sorry.

 This one turned out to be quite good even by my own demanding standards. In the midst of the brouhaha about Putin being made Time's man of the year, I thought I need to make my point as well. And I did devote 2 hours to it. Here are some basic highlights, but as usual, the podcast has more stuff in it:

• The initial assertion by Time's Managing Editor: "He (Putin) stands, above all, for stability—stability before freedom, stability before choice, stability in a country that has hardly seen it for a hundred years" is so inane, it could have been uttered by a Santa Cruz City council member. Stability is not a goal, it is a tool to achieve other goals.
• Time Magazine and its managing editor completely missed what are Putin's goals.
• Stability of Putin's personal power, stability of his clans, these are his goals, not stability of the country.
• If it is economic stability, then, Putin has little to do with it. I would claim otherwise - the current economic prosperity of Russia happened despite Putin, not because of him. It was caused by oil prices and if it had not been for Putin's nationalization policies, it would have been better.
• In a sense Time completely missed why is it they made Putin "man of the Year". Does Putin deserve it more them other runners up? Yes he does. But not because of what Times thought.
• Putin deserves to be the Person of the Year because of his personal achievements - not many can usurp a huge country, nip a small bud of democracy, turn it into a fief for himself and his minions and make people love him for that even more. That is no small feat.
• It does seem that unlike its managing editor, Time's photographer saw it clearly. Putin does look like a Don. Very appropriate. 

Happy podcasting. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year,