The pot calling the kettle black
Pol Pot was a Pot and Putin is also a pot, a potilician, I mean, a politician and has a lot of enemies who are also politicians or backers of politicians or kettles of politicians. That means that, when he says something that’s right, no one wants to say he’s right, everyone wants to say he’s wrong. Because it’s right to say he’s wrong, even if he’s right and wrong to say he’s right, even if he is right. In a way, Mr Putin is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Either way, he’s damned. I’ll be damned, but maybe he should just shut up. But the fact he doesn’t shut up tells us one thing for pretty certain: he’s rattled.
That said, I’m no politician (till I get 100 blog subscribers), so I’ll say what I think’s right and what’s wrong, and you can decide yourselves as well, because you’re also not politicians (you’re not, are you?).
Putin says the west has no moral right to talk about democracy, and western countries seek no way out of the global food crisis. Right. The prices in my supermarket tell me that.
The west has no moral right to talk about democracy because democracy is a label they use for their systems, but it isn’t democracy. Democracy is where (a) everyone is free to do as they wish within the law and (b) the law is the same for everyone. And nowhere that calls itself a democracy is both of those. Neither is right, or one is right, or the other, usually (a) and not (b). Because (b) is manipulated so that (a) cannot be right. Putin doesn’t say if Russia is a democracy, but it isn’t. He’s right again not to say that it is. And, while the west has no moral right to talk of democracy, they do have a legal right, without going to jail, which is more than you can do in Russia. We have laws in the west that allow western politicians to pretend they are in a democracy, even if they aren’t. But, in Russia, you can pretend you’re in a democracy but not say you are, otherwise you go to prison. That’s neat, even if both of these are wrong, right?
Putin accuses the west of believing that “their civilisation and their neo-liberal culture is the golden standard to everyone else”, while “unilaterally deciding who has the right to self-determination and who doesn’t”. Right. Ukraine has a right to self-determination. Donbas doesn’t. Catalonia doesn’t. Scotland doesn’t. No one is dictating to Putin what he does in Russia, however, be it according to a golden standard or otherwise. We decry it but don’t dictate to him how it should be. He, however, dictates what others should be, do and think about themselves and him. Wrong. Russian president, go lick a postage stamp.
However, there are some outside Russia that do want to dictate these things in Russia, but don’t actually want to do anything about that, and so spout empty words. A bit like these are.
What Putin doesn’t say is that killing people in foreign countries is wrong. He says, in fact, that it’s right. Wrong. Killing people anywhere is wrong, Mr Putin, not right.
The west and Russia are a pot and a kettle, and both call the other black. However being black is one thing; making everyone else black is something else. People should be hypocritical about their own country, not other people’s. Then, we’d all be happy.
At this link is an article that says to me The Guardian doesn't know if Mr Putin's right or wrong. Good stance, right?