PBS-TV’s Frontline’s Misrepresents Russia’s Vladimir Putin

[newthinking]

PBS-TV’s Frontline’s Misrepresents Russia’s Vladimir Putin
January 19th, 2015

Eric Zuesse
thepeoplesvoice.org

On January 13th, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) telecast the FRONTLINE documentary, “Putin’s Way,” which purported to be a biography of Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin.

The press release about this film states: "Drawing on firsthand accounts from exiled Russian business tycoons, writers and politicians, as well as the exhaustive research of scholar and best-selling Putin’s Kleptocracy author Karen Dawisha, the film examines troubling episodes in Putin’s past, from alleged money-laundering activities and ties to organized crime, to a secret personal fortune said to be in the billions. … These accounts portray a Russian leader who began by professing hope and democracy but now is stoking nationalism, conflict and authoritarianism.”

This documentary opens by describing the corruption that pervaded post-Soviet Russia and the Presidential Administration of Putin’s sponsor Boris Yeltsin during the transitional period of ending communism and starting capitalism, which was the period of privatization of the former Soviet Government’s assets. This film ignores the role that the U.S. and especially the then-World-Bank President Lawrence Summers and his protege Andrei Shleifer and other members of Harvard’s Economics Department played in planning and largely overseeing that entire process. Yeltsin brought that team in, to plan and oversee the process, because he figured that Harvard would know how to set up capitalism. On 10 February 2006, the Harvard Crimson headlined about the result, “Tawdry Shleifer Affair’ Stokes Faculty Anger Toward Summers‘,” and noted that the affair was such an embarrassment to the University that, “Shleifer, the Jones professor of economics, was found liable by a federal court in 2004 for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government while leading a Harvard economic reform program in Russia as it transitioned to capitalism in the 1990s. Shleifer settled the case for $2 million.” An extensive article by David McClintick in Institutional Investor magazine described the sleazy details of this affair, under the banner of “How Harvard Lost Russia.” However, this FRONTLINE documentary ignores all of that history, and pretends that Yeltsin established Russia’s crony-capitalism with no help or guidance from the U.S., the World Bank, and Harvard’s economists. Putin is instead portrayed as having been, and as now being, just a continuation of Soviet-era corruption, not at all as functioning in what was, to a significant extent, actually a U.S.-headed transition into capitalism.

Continued:

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2015/01/19/pbs-tv-s-frontline-s-misrepresents-russi

[swilton]

1. Putin has become the US' boogeyman

but like Boris Yeltsin has his strengths and weaknesses

Briefly. Yeltsin, the former RSFSR Chairman, defended perestroika and President Gorbachev in a failed 1991 attempt to overthrow President Gorbachev by anti-reform hardliners concerned that the pace of change was happening too fast and disestablishing the traditional power structures. While Gorbachev was 'rescued', Yeltisin was hailed the world over for rescuing Russia's liberalization. Yeltsin became the first democratically elected President - late 1992 when the former Soviet Union was dissolved, and set about with the aid of US economic advisors (Larry Summers) (1992) a series of 'shock therapy' economic-type reforms. The resulting hyper-inflation destroyed Russia's economy and this process was the genesis of the term 'crony capitalism'. While some oligarchs made vast sums of wealth, it was tragic for everyday Russians who were otherwise dependent upon the communist social safety net. Putin was a Yeltsin appointee and his main strength (still seen no doubt by the majority of Russians) was that he was capable of taking a hard line and control the oligarchs and reign in the capitalist sell-off of the Russian commons. Putin has his faults but Russia could and has done a lot worse.

Thanks for posting the article.

[uhnope]

2. this is the funniest Putin-cheerleader post yet.

The US is even responsible for Russian corruption. WOW.

But thanks for telling people about the great documentary they can watch for free:

[newthinking]

3. I know you despize liberal sites and commentary

not surprised by that at all.

Have no problem with the documentary on the same chain as the OP. People will see both and can make their conclusions.

Oh, and thanks for kicking it back to the top!

[uhnope]

4. pretty pathetic attempt at Straw Man argument

Not worth responding to. But speaking of pathetic:

The Pathetic Lives of Putin’s American Dupes
By Jonathan Chait Follow @jonathanchait

A tragically large number of left-wing Westerners in the 20th century deluded themselves about the horrors of Soviet communism. As awful and unforgivable as it was, the process by which they made themselves into dupes was at least explicable: They loved socialism, and one country in the world was implementing socialism, so they persuaded themselves, and for a while, it was working.

Today’s Russia dupes are a smaller, more pathetic lot. Above all they are just plain weirder, because they lack a clear ideological motive for their stoogery. Soviet Russia not only commanded a vast propaganda network, but embodied a doctrine with international appeal (and which had originated outside of Russia). Vladimir Putin’s Russia follows no model except Russian nationalism. To the extent it employs a non-nationalist philosophy, its main idea is that gays have weakened Europe. And yet the dupes still come.

The most prominent intellectual apologist for Putin is Stephen F. Cohen, Princeton professor, Russologist for the left-wing Nation. Cohen is a septuagenarian, old-school leftist who has carried on the mental habits of decades of anti-anti-communism seamlessly into a new career of anti-anti-Putinism. The Cohen method is to pick away at every indictment of the Russian regime without directly associating himself with its various atrocities. Is Putin persecuting gays? Well, Cohen wants us to know that various Ukrainians nationalists dislike gays, too. And also Barack Obama’s claim to snub Sochi because of gay rights is probably not on the level. Is Putin bullying and killing journalists? Eh, says Cohen, “Every time a journalist breaks a leg, they say the Kremlin did it.” Accidents happen.

The primary hub of Russian propaganda in the West is Russia Today, an English-language Kremlin-funded propaganda outlet. Joe Pompeo reported last fall how RT has actually acquired a devoted following in the West, in part through relentless viral YouTube sharing of its reports. Cohen, of course, appears regularly on RT. (Is RT biased? Well, he says, so is CNN: “I’m highly suspicious about the narrative I’m getting on CNN. It seems to be the flip side of RT.”)

read all http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/pathetic-lives-of-putins-american-dupes.html

[newthinking]

7. Here's another to read

[font size=3, face="Georgia,serif"]
The Washington Post's Putinology
By Peter Hart
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

http://fair.org/blog/2014/10/28/the-washington-posts-putinology/

We're supposed to know by now that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a really bad guy–so bad that anything that he says is further proof of his screeching hostility to the United States.

The Washington Post reported (10/24/14) on a recent Putin speech with this blistering lead sentence:

[blockquote style="width:620px";][font size="2"] “Making clear that the Kremlin has no intention of backing down from the worst Russia/Western crisis since the Cold War, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Friday of trying to "reshape the whole world" for its benefit, in a fiery speech that was one of the most anti-American of his 15 years as Russia's paramount leader.”[/font]

Fiery anti-Americanism!

It's not hard to believe that Putin was highly critical of the US foreign policy, but what precisely did he say? The Post called it "a bitter distillation of Putin's anti-American rhetoric." The Post Karoun Demirjian and Michael Birnbaum reported that the address was an:

[blockquote style="width:620px";][font size="2"] “unsmiling, straightforward worldview that blasted the United States as taking advantage of its powerful post-Cold War position to dictate misguided terms to the rest of the world. Putin faulted the United States for a rise in global terrorism, a resumption of a global arms race and a general worsening of global security.

It never ceases to amaze me how our partners have been guilty of making the same mistakes time and again," Putin said, accusing the United States of breeding terrorists by upsetting the established order in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.”[/font]

OK, so fiery anti-Americanism is the belief that the United States desires a unipolar world where it calls the shots. Does anyone doubt US elites think otherwise?

And the US, he thinks, bears some responsibility for fueling the global arms race. The United States is, according to some less than fiery and not particularly anti-American news outlets, the leading supplier of arms in the world ("US Arms Sales Make Up Most of Global Market," New York Times, 8/26/12; "US Doubles Down on Foreign Military Sales," Defense News, 7/19/14).

On the subject of nuclear arms, a key issue in US/Russia relations, the New York Times (9/21/14) recently reported on the US plan to increase its nuclear arsenal–a "nationwide wave of atomic revitalization" that could cost well over a trillion dollars.

And it's hard to argue with Putin's critique of US foreign policy accomplishments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya; those countries have suffered extreme violence and instability due to US military actions. Would there even be an ISIS without the US invasion of Iraq?

None of that should be mistaken as an endorsement of anything Putin or Russia has done. But if the Post means to show us that a foreign leader is a fiery, bitter anti-American, it might want to make a stronger case.

The news article, though, was nothing compared to the Post's editorial (10/27/14). Under the Web headline "Putinoia on Full Display," the paper blasted Putin for his

[blockquote style="width:620px";][font size=2] “poisonous mix of lies, conspiracy theories, thinly veiled threats of further aggression and, above all, seething resentment toward the United States.”[/font]

Again, that's a pretty serious charge. It's not hard to imagine a politician telling lies; which ones did Putin tell?

The Post doesn't seem to want to tell us. It does say Putin claimed that the United States has:

[blockquote style="width:620px";] “promoted a "unipolar world [that] is simply a means of justifying dictatorship over people and countries." According to Mr. Putin, Washington has created chaos across the world by conspiring to foment revolutions, including what he views as an armed "coup d'etat" in Ukraine.”

Again, the United States does see itself as the world's lone superpower, with a dominant military and an obvious record of attempting to use military force, directly or otherwise, to change the world to its liking (though these efforts are not always successful). In Ukraine, in particular, Washington certainly supported the violent overthrow of an elected government–whether you want to call that a "coup d'etat" or not.

The editorial began with this observation:

[blockquote style="width:620px";] “Anyone wondering what Western leaders have been up against when they try to reason with Vladi­mir Putin need only read the transcript of the Russian ruler's three-hour performance at the annual Valdai conference in Sochi on Friday.”

The thing is, if you're going to say someone is a poisonous liar who traffics in conspiracy theories, then you should show that. That the Post doesn't seem to feel the need to do so either means the evidence isn't there, or that the burden of proof is very low when it comes to official enemies.
[/font]

[/font]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Per the license the only changes made are some mid paragraph link citations and images. Please see the original page at:
http://fair.org/blog/2014/10/28/the-washington-posts-putinology/
You can follow the additional references there.

[newthinking]

5. Project Censored - US Media Hypocrisy in Covering Ukraine Crisis

So now are you going to try and start link wars (like your little video battle)? You do realize that since the primary narrative is the one you are trying to protect linking something to it is counter effective to what you have been trying to do (shut down other opinions)?

I will add this link while I am at it

Project Censored - US Media Hypocrisy in Covering Ukraine Crisis
http://www.projectcensored.org/9-us-media-hypocrisy-covering-ukraine-crisis/

[uhnope]

6. But I thought you were in favor of people who "shut down other opinions"

like your hero Vlad and his wrecking of the independent media in Russia

[polly7]

9. LOL.

Pootie/Hussein/Gaddafi lovers!!! What'cha going to do, uhnope - they're everywhere!

[KoKo]

8. It's a "Good Read" ....one just has to ignore the "noise."

Open Minded People....will read...even if they don't reply.