American commentators apply an entirely different yardstick to Navalny, while their peer group back home casts Anthony Weiner as the original sinner.
MK Bhadrakumer @ Russia India ReportI am not putting this news up because of concern for Anthony Weiner. What this article shows, clearly, is that the NATO/corporate controlled western media is always on message for the imperial war/destabilization agenda. While Weiner is chastized, as he should be. Navalny is lionized and he should not be. What is the difference? Only the political agenda.
The indiscretion of Anthony Weiner, former US Congressman, on the other hand, stemmed from a compulsive weakness for what Americans call “Online sex” – sending lewd selfies (pictures of oneself) to women he got acquainted with on the Internet.Unlike Navalny’s theft of state property, Weiner’s act was a private affair. Yet, there has been an avalanche of criticism about Weiner and editorials and national leaders in the US have urged him to drop out of the mayoral race following the tawdry revelations about his escapades last week. In comparison, all the animated discussions in Russia about Navalny bypass the core issue, namely, he has a record of embezzlement of public property and, therefore, ineligible to hold office. Ironically, it is on the issue of corruption that Navalny built up his strange career in the blogosphere from where he tiptoed into politics with magical ease.It is even bigger hypocrisy that the American commentators apply to him an entirely different yardstick when their peer group back home would cast Weiner as the original sinner. To be sure, the strange case of Navalny raises some big issues.
He (Navalny) went to Yale under an American scholarship and returned to Russia as a freshly-minted public crusader – telegenic, English-speaking and audacious. But does that absolve him of a criminal past? This is one thing.
The independent pollsters put Navalny’s rating as somewhere around 15 percent, which won’t stop incumbent mayor Sergei Sobyanin from winning outright in the first round. The polls show that the people’s distrust about Navalny is only growing and they feel troubled not only by his shady past but also by his brand of Russian nationalism that pits Russia against Muslim Central Asia.Despite the West lionizing him, Navalny looks less and less convincing as a leader of a coherent opposition. And it raises a question: Is Navalny an individual or is he a project? There is something sinister going on.Why else should the National Endowment for Democracy [NED] sponsor a 22-year old Russian young thing, Vera Kichanova, to visit the White House in Washington last week as “one of the faces of the new generation of political opposition in Russia.” Ever heard of Vera?
I've never heard of Vera Kichanova?
The NED, which specializes in staging ‘colour revolutions’ in the former Soviet republics, acted as recruiting agency, while Vera’s appointments in Washington, DC, included Susan Rice, US national security advisor, Samantha Power, US ambassador to the United Nations, et al and the high officials at the White House and the State Department were eager to pick Vera’s mind about “what the US can do to help promote reform in Russia.”
Wow, this Vera Kichanova must be something 'special'? Has anyone else heard of or know anything about this individual?
The spirited Vera promptly suggested to the Obama administration to expand the Magnitsky List “to include others, like the people responsible for the arrests of protestors on Bolotnaya Square [in Moscow in May 2012].”
That’s an interesting suggestion from the 22 year old Vera, no?
The real reason behind such manifestly anti-Putin frenzy in the US needs to be understood. Gangster capitalism began in Boris Yeltsin’s time. It was Yeltsin who destroyed in 1993 the nearest thing Russia ever got as a parliament by ordering tanks to fire shells on its White House home. Yeltsin nonetheless enjoyed a good press in the West. There were no Veras hanging around Bill Clinton’s White House. Why so?There were two reasons. One, the only alternative to Yeltsin was the Russian communist party, whose return to power was unthinkable for Washington, which, therefore, duly ensured Yeltsin won the 1996 election. The second reason was that a huge transfer of wealth was taking place from Russia, thanks to the bizarre situation in Russia.On the other hand, the post-Yeltsin Russian political system proved “non-cooperative”. Vladimir Putin is an immensely popular national leader and doesn’t need the US’ support for political survival, thanks to his assertive international stance and his relatively successful economic policy, which saw a higher trajectory of growth, drop in unemployment and rise in real wages.Obviously, it meant that the sort of dizzying levels of influence that Washington held over Yeltsin’s Russia has become a thing of the past. And, the sort of “business opportunity” to fish prize specimens from the muddy pool of Russian economy no longer exists as in those halcyon days of the nineties.
In other word's Putin does not need Washington to stay in his leadership role in Russia
The real idea behind building up the Navalnys and Veras is to get under the skin of the Russian political establishment...................
I can’t disagree with that. And would take it a step further and throw Snowden into the whole attempt at ‘getting under the skin’ of the Russian political establishment.There is more you can read it at the link provided.