So now I am worried about the American press!!!
Beginning with the premise (with which I agree
"The bottom line is that the West has been suckered by Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin. Rather, he's a Russified Pinochet or Franco. And he is not guiding Russia toward free-market democracy, but into fascism."
Kristof (for whose views I usually have time) continues:
"In effect, Mr. Putin has steered Russia from a dictatorship of the left to a dictatorship of the right (Chinese leaders have done much the same thing). Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet, Park Chung Hee and Putin all emerged in societies suffering from economic and political chaos. All consolidated power in part because they established order and made the trains - or planes - run on time.
Before asserting:
Still, a fascist Russia is a much better thing than a Communist Russia. Communism was a failed economic system, while Franco's Spain, General Pinochet's Chile and the others generated solid economic growth, a middle class and international contacts - ultimately laying the groundwork for democracy. Eventually we'll see pro-democracy demonstrations in Moscow like those in Kiev."
I searched the article for Post-Modernist Irony - see -
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/opinion/15kristof.html?thbut no! The asshole meant it!
Well, really, Nick? Try telling victims or the families of victims under fascist regimes that life was sooo much better than under Stalinist ones. And as for fascism being a springboard for "pro-democracy demonstrations,what exactly did he reckon was going on in the Eastern European capitals and in Tien An Mien Square circa 1989?
Sorry, Nick. I'm a democracy man, me. I don't have a pecking order of totalitarianism.
The Skin