“Since coming to power in 2000, this President has had one clear central objective: strengthening the state, at home and abroad. He pledged to restore the state power that had been lost under his predecessor. Everything else, such as free-market economic reforms or careful, balancing diplomacy, was a means to this end.”

“Above all, he believed that the way to make the country stronger was to shift more authority to the President. Motivated by this conception of state-building, this President has shrunk or eliminated every serious check on presidential power. The two houses, the independent media, governors, independent political parties and civil society — all are weaker today than they were in 2000, leaving the presidency as the country’s sole meaningful center of decision-making.”

Oh? You thought this was referring to George Bush? This description actually comes from a review of “Putin’s Russia,” by Anna Politkovskaya. Don’t feel bad if you mistook the new Tsar of Russia, Vladimir Putin for old King George. “The state is not effective but corrupt — unable and unwilling to provide basic public goods to the suffering people of Russia.” “Putin’s Russia” suggests that fear is the only public good that today’s Kremlin provides effectively.

There were a few other quotes from his review that I found very telling.

The army “is mostly a prison camp behind barbed wire where the country’s young are locked up without trial.” (Guantanamo Bay?)

“Effective states draw borders between the activities of the government and the private sector. …one can become rich only by maintaining close relations with the authorities.” (Can I hear a Halliburton?)

“Effective states provide their citizens a basic level of subsistence.” (They call the wind Katrina.) “A World War II veteran froze to death in his apartment because local government authorities would not repair a broken heating pipe.(More cuts in veteran benefits.)

“Putin and his comrades simply do not care about people. Their line is wholly neo-Soviet: humans have no independent existence; they are cogs in a machine whose function is to implement unquestionably whatever political escapade those in power have dreamed up. Cogs have no rights, not even to dignity in death.” (Basic health care? Prescription red tape? Katrina again.)

And yet, hidden within these bleak stories are flashes of individual inspiration. For instance, Nina Levurda, a Russian mother whose son died in Chechnya, is trying to sue the state — not in response to the tragic loss of her son, but because of the inhumane manner in which the state reported (or did not report) his death to her. (Pat Tillman’s family, take note.)

It’s time to wake up, people. The next election is only months away. It is time to take back our country.

And I hate the taste of vodka.

But didn’t he famously say, when Kissinger won the Nobel prize, that political satire was now forever obsolete? Good to see he’s sticking to his guns on that one.

(And no I don’t think that 1973 was the worst Nobel peace prize ever given. 1985, 1994, 2002, and most especially 2001, are all much worse.)

I wonder if he is the reason why we have the word “Juvenile”.

To be a juvenal… hehe

It is a shock that so many words in the ENglish language come from Ancient ROman and Greek times. It makes you wonder whether we picked it up from them, or they picked it up from us. To follow that causality.