POL 161 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1-10: Cheka, Ogoniok, Kommersant
Document Summary
New liberal international has a program: to remove sovereignty from national governments, to implant a new ideology into mass consciousness and impose new standards of behavior and new thoughts: powerful instrument = political correctness. Every political leader manipulates the media and the people, suppresses the opposition, has control over the legal system and distributed rent: putin excels in spotting and exploiting existing weaknesses. The soviet union collapsed, not because of american military pressure, but because the values of freedom and the desire for dignity were more powerful than soviet ideology: victory of values over ideology. Russians sublimate their anger and frustration at their own failures into anti-americanism. The way the nato expansion took place provoked deep insecurity and resentment in russia and resulted in two wars in less than ten years. Emergence of putin as russia"s president was partly the result of this loss of trust and disillusionment with pro- western elites.
