Several hundred children from across the country took part in a “Children draw Putin” competition for his 54th birthday with the top 100 pictures going on display in the capital. What isn't being reported is that the competition was actually an assignment for schoolchildren. These were the following 'themes' they were encouraged to incorporate in their work.
'Putin with his black Labrador Kony, Putin on a fighter jet, Putin on a submarine,
Putin greets the launching of the rocket complex “Bulava.” ,Putin with the Patriarch Alexiy II, Putin with wife and children, Putin with Bush or any other foreign leader Putin as an intelligence officer, Putin wearing a kimono robe, Putin skiing, etc...
“I love Russia!” proclaimed one picture, with Putin shown releasing doves on a hillside. The president was also depicted in Judo garb with a black belt, fixing the engine of his car or holidaying in a Black Sea resort. Some took a more worldly line — with one showing the president, also sporting his black belt, fighting the four evils of crime, corruption, inflation and drug abuse, against a backdrop of the map of Russia.
All these images of the Great Leader call forth the obvious hagiography directed at Stalin or the endless murals of Saddam depicted as professor, soldier, devoted man of religion and builder or the portraiture of Kim Jong-Il in North Korea. Part of the revival of the USSR has been the attempt to transform Putin into a 'Great Leader' along the lines of past Soviet icons such as Lenin and Stalin.
Russia has rebuilt its economic empire by leveraging its gas and seizing private companies. It has used its arms industry to once again arm and fuel the Marxist regimes and Arab terrorist groups fighting America. From the Latin American coalition of Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba and soon Nicaragua with the election of Daniel Ortega and the USSR's old clients, the Sandanistas; to the Middle East where Russia supplied weapons to Saddam before the invasion, to Hizbullah whom it is rearming and training with the aid of two Chechen divisions now stationed there and Iran whose nuclear reactor Russia is building.
Back at home Russia is aggressively forcing its old republics back into its sphere and lashing out at those nationalities and Republics that don't comply as Georgia is finding out as Georgians are being deported in large numbers from Georgia in conditions meant for cattle that have already killed one person, homes and businesses seized and Georgian wine and products boycotted.
Other paintings by the children are more explicitly nationalistic and jingoistic. One shows Putin's giant fist punching George Bush in the face and another has Putin trampling the American flag while raising up the Russian flag.
This is part and parcel of Russia under Putin having gone back to the old days of inciting xenophobia aimed at America and England. America is portrayed in the Russia media and the Russian overseas media aimed at Russian immigrants much as it is in Iran. Putin's government cobbled up the absurd spy story which had English spies hiding secret transmitters in a rock in the park, the sort of nonsense that was a staple of the Soviet era. Today the Russian media continually plays up America as the enemy and Putin's government despite its assurances to American diplomats, particularly the useless Condoleeza Rice, acts that way.
The old boss is back.
But meanwhile I'm declaring a 'Draw Putin' contest for Sultan Knish blog readers. Submit your entry to Sultan Knish via email or in comments. First prize is display in the Gallery of Knish and a real Knish made out of Putin's dog. Second prize is the tail of the dog. Third prize is all of Russia.
Comments
Mine are sent.
ReplyDeleteI want 3rd prize no matter what.
I will kick out all the Russians and make it a going concern in 6 months.
Putin is not perfect. But you have to realize Russia NEVER WAS a democracy and probably will never be ready to become one. Having lived under his regime, I know the score. Those who had businesses truly taken from them were indeed a threat to national security at a time when stability is paramount. Khodorkovsky (NOT a Jew al pi halacha despite his name, but willing to call out the anti-Semitism card when it paid for him), a protege of Soros, was a thug, a murderer, and an opportunist who wanted not only to murder but to inherit. His plan was to revive the moribund Communist party and put himself in as a Nigerian style kleptocrat, all in the name of "open society." Eventually, his handlers would have seen to it that the socialist left would take over, and Russia would sink under bureaucracy and welfare statism.
ReplyDeleteAnd the national minorities who are being oppressed by Putin just so happen to be the terrorist Chechens and the criminal, Sicilian style Georgians (who have a country of their own to go back to). For Jews, it is the Golden Age of Spain again - of course it could end in the Inquisition if Putin messes up and hands power to the wrong person. For that matter, foreign business advisors are well treated and appreciated - all of the major Russian firms have foreign executives in high places now as Russian firms integrate into the world economy.
Meanwhile, small to medium business is getting a nice foothold. My field is actually consumer research, and I cannot bear to shop in sprawling, disorganized Pathmark or ShopRite after the luxury and order that I experienced in the new Russian middle class oriented supermarkets that I visited daily for professional reasons. When the snow would melt every spring, I'd take long walks to peripheral areas of Moscow where I would sometimes get lost because of all the new construction and new streets/plazas that replaced familiar landmarks. I even got lost once by taking a roundabout route to shul, on streets where new developments replaced crumbling old Soviet housing in a matter of 12-18 months thanks to private enterprise.
The US could learn from Putin when it comes to Mexican illegals, Arab terrorists, George Soros, and Moveon.org/Michael Moore (to say nothing of Jimmy Carter and whatever is left of Al Sharpton). In the meantime, no one can reverse 70 years of Communist mismanagement, 8 years of muddled rule by a well meaning but ill suited man, and the mess of the end of the Romanov era overnight. But Putin, despite the lousy coverage he gets in the US, which fears a strong Russia as it loses control of its own borders, has come a long way.
The real test will come when he needs to turn over the reins of power. The Singapore model may prove far better for Russia than true democracy - but one thing is for sure, if Russia ends up with a Carter or a Clinton, we better all run to the bomb shelters because lawless elements will take over everything including weapons (the ones that work, not the defective night goggles sold to Saddam by a Russian arms dealer who may or may not have been official).
The pictures drawn by the children show the propaganda over there is as bad and rotten as ever it was.
ReplyDeleteAwful, awful stuff.
Thanks for the chance to offer in our own drawings. :)
You know how I love to draw.
It's the former USSR communist concept of setting up a leader as god.
ReplyDeleteI can only imagine what will start happening to religious people of all faiths now that Russia is reverting to its old ways. Or did it ever really abandon them?
Remember the Man From U.N.C.L.E. ?
ReplyDeletePutin and Ilya Kuriakin are identical.
I want 3rd prize!!! I want to create a reality tv show! I want to put a fence all around Russia! A really high one! With barbed wire and poison ivy. Then ship all the arabs there and let them kill each other! It could easily be the coolest reality tv show known to man!
ReplyDeletecomrad spooky scary... p'zhalesteh...stay safe...love your blog
ReplyDeleteYes K.A., this goes back to the Czars really, Russians treat the 'strong' leaders as semi-deities. They maintained pantheons of Czars (many of whom became saints) and then panteons of Soviet Premiers. Now Putin is trying to keep it going. It's paganism.
ReplyDeleteYou've got it Lemon, Russia could be a great place without the Russians. Much like Paris without the French.
ReplyDeleteYo, works for me. About time Russia paid the wages of its backing Arab terrorists. Of course it's already happening except with Muslims and Chinese. The Russian population is severely dropping and the various Uzbeks, Tajiks, etc and the Chinese are taking over.
ReplyDeleteRussia had the chance to be a democracy twice, under Kerensky and Yeltsin. Both times democracy was crushed with a totalitarian regime. That's what happened now under Putin or rather under the military and KGB forces behind Putin.
ReplyDeleteThose who had businesses taken from them were a threat to the Putin regime. So are those who have been murdered and those who have been beaten and threatened. Some are lefties but not all. Some just happened to be in the way. Some were investigating the government's business dealings a little too closely.
And yes it is Jews being targeted prominently. Not necessarily all who are Jews Al Pi Halacha, but those who are Jewish from the Anti-semitic Russian perspective. The numbers are disproportionate and it's no coincidence that Jews are being targeted, just as it was no coincidence when Kruschev began executing large numbers of Jews for 'black-marketeering' The same excuses were made then too.
A golden age for Jews? A golden age in a collapsing country that can't maintain its own population and whose top political and media figures endlessly spew Anti-semitism?
A golden age for Jews in a country where politicians call for the banning of the Shulchan Aruch? A Golden Age for Jews in a country that lives off a gas monopoly and selling weapons to Arabs with which to murder Jews and Americans?
Unlike Russia, Georgia never saw a pogrom against Jews. Compared to Russia, Georgia was a haven for Jews where Jews managed to keep Torah and Mitzvos as in few places in the USSR.
And do you really think that when the Putin regime can respond to tensions with Georgia by rounding up and deporting Georgians, that the same thing won't happen to Jews when tensions begin with Israel? Does two centuries and more of history mean absolutely nothing.
"if Russia ends up with a Carter or a Clinton, we better all run to the bomb shelters because lawless elements will take over everything including weapons"
IY'H. A strong America stands up against terrorism. A strong Russia backs and funds terrorism. A strong America backs Jews. A strong Russia murders Jews.
What happens exactly when these 'lawless elements' take over the weapons? They'll begin selling nukes to Iran and weapons to Hizbullah? They'll protect Iran and other terrorist regimes in the UN Security Council?
We had a weak Russia under Yeltsin and the world was a much safer place for it, for a while because a strong Russia means dead Americans and dead Jews.
Russia is not going to turn into Singapore, it is going to be what it always was, in one form or another. A kleptocracy from top to bottom, a corrupt nation filled with informers, with a vastly inflated sense of self-worth brimming with drunken violence. The question is how much damage it can do in the process.
Russia never left its old ways believe me. Propaganda is all you get from Russians.
ReplyDeleteI forgot my drawing entry. Putin as Vlad the Impaler.
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