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Great closing paragraph: My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his addre

by welder 13y ago

Great closing paragraph: My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal. And yes, it's hypocritical and carefully crafted.

dnautics 13y ago
Well perhaps the pro-Putin youth group will take his words to heart.
peterstjohn 13y ago
"we must not forget that God created us equal." As long as you're not gay.
- cbhl 13y ago
  IIRC, that's illegal in Russia, unfortunately. America is known for being religious in general, so this line will work well with his target audience, in general.
  - spacebe4time 13y ago
    Somehow I doubt this applies to NY Times readers.
  - teamgb 13y ago
    Not really true from a legal perspective. It is legal to be gay in Russia, but the recently passed law makes it illegal to spread "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors".
zw 13y ago
Yeah, the statement is all well and good, but I'm no fan of being lectured about the spread of dangerous ideas by a man who thinks homosexuality is contagious and whose power was mostly gained by family ties and rank in the Kremlin pre-collapse.
- foxhedgehog 13y ago
  This is actually a very generous account of how Putin rose to power. See: http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Without-Face-Unlikely/dp/1594486514 http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Without-Face-Unlikely/dp/15944...
- Malician 13y ago
  I don't think things are all as simple as Putin's personal opinions on homosexuality. In fact, I think it is very helpful to see what an eloquent and reasonable public statement can be created by someone who advocates policies so awful. We are inclined by nature to treat the public opinions and actions of world leaders as internal to themselves, rather than ones simply chosen by expediency. If Russia were in a different situation, if Russia's public felt differently, if Putin ruled a different nation, the same man would produce a statement through the bureaucracy and the PR folk which would be entirely different. In other words, when reading statements by world leaders, our natural inclinations to judge the accuracy, worth and truth of what is said are entirely worthless. The whole thing is manufactured by highly, highly competent organizations which can produce whatever gems are required of them.
- DominikR 13y ago
  Putin is not agains homosexuality, he has concerns that the persons behind the gay rights protests are in fact trying to facilitate a colour revolution style coup. link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution Another move that makes it plausible that this is in fact his reasoning for the "gay propaganda" law is the "foreign agent" law. The foreign agent law makes it mandatory for NGO's to be transparent about who they are associated with, and from which foreign country they receive money. To me, this paranoia is going overboard, but on the other hand there are precedents where coups happened after NGO's, that received money and other resources from foreign governments, incited protests. And inciting protests from within is probably one of the few options left, if you want to facilitate a regime change in Russia, since conventional war is not going to go well with that many nukes on both sides of the table.
coffeemug 13y ago
Unfortunately you have to know a bit of Russian to pick up on this, but if you watch/read Russian media for a while it becomes obvious how this paragraph is a comical bit of hypocrisy. The Russians in general and Putin in particular talk all the time about how the Russian soul is exceptional, how Russia is somehow different from western democracies and has its own unique (and largely mystical) economic and political path, how you can't understand it with intellect and can only believe in it (which is a classic bit of Russian poetry internalized by pretty much everyone), and how the Russians are somehow more "spiritual" than everyone else. Putin has the knack for coming off as fairly reasonable to the western audience, but to someone who was born and raised in the former Soviet Union this reads like something from the Onion. EDIT: here is a specific example to illustrate my point. In a recent interview, here is how Putin characterized the difference between the American and Russian "soul". He brought up a quote by the main heroine from Gone with the Wind where she said "I can't imagine what it would be like to be hungry all the time". Putin then pointed out that something like this is a primary concern of an American soul (implying base concerns for physical comforts), while this wouldn't be a concern for the Russian soul, which allegedly is concerned with much more important spiritual matters. This isn't an isolated example -- this happens all the time. Going on NYT and criticizing american exceptionalism seems incredibly hypocritical to me. EDIT2: I also feel compelled to point out either the sleaziness or sloppy thinking (you decide which one) of taking a single character from a work of fiction and extrapolating it to a conclusion about an entire people (of course in service of "proving" that Americans are far baser people than the Russians).
- Demiurge 13y ago
  >you can't understand it with intellect and can only believe in it (which is a classic bit of Russian poetry internalized by pretty much everyone) It's not poetry, it's a self critical fable. It's so obvious too, "you can't understand it" because it's not logical. This is in line with everyone being proud of how Russian roads are the worst in the world. This particular attitude of being exceptional, regardless if it's exceptionally corrupt or drunk, is perpendicular to the concept of exceptionalism by the virtue of being chosen by God as special people. The concept of American self-righteousness does not exist in Russia the way it does in US. >Putin has the knack for coming off as fairly reasonable to the western audience, but to someone who was born and raised in the former Soviet Union this reads like something from the Onion. I'm curious, were you born and raised in the former Soviet Union?

by welder 13y ago

dnautics 13y ago

Well perhaps the pro-Putin youth group will take his words to heart.

peterstjohn 13y ago

"we must not forget that God created us equal." As long as you're not gay.

cbhl 13y ago
IIRC, that's illegal in Russia, unfortunately. America is known for being religious in general, so this line will work well with his target audience, in general.
- spacebe4time 13y ago
  Somehow I doubt this applies to NY Times readers.
- teamgb 13y ago
  Not really true from a legal perspective. It is legal to be gay in Russia, but the recently passed law makes it illegal to spread "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors".

zw 13y ago

Yeah, the statement is all well and good, but I'm no fan of being lectured about the spread of dangerous ideas by a man who thinks homosexuality is contagious and whose power was mostly gained by family ties and rank in the Kremlin pre-collapse.

foxhedgehog 13y ago
This is actually a very generous account of how Putin rose to power. See: http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Without-Face-Unlikely/dp/1594486514 http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Without-Face-Unlikely/dp/15944...
Malician 13y ago
I don't think things are all as simple as Putin's personal opinions on homosexuality. In fact, I think it is very helpful to see what an eloquent and reasonable public statement can be created by someone who advocates policies so awful. We are inclined by nature to treat the public opinions and actions of world leaders as internal to themselves, rather than ones simply chosen by expediency. If Russia were in a different situation, if Russia's public felt differently, if Putin ruled a different nation, the same man would produce a statement through the bureaucracy and the PR folk which would be entirely different. In other words, when reading statements by world leaders, our natural inclinations to judge the accuracy, worth and truth of what is said are entirely worthless. The whole thing is manufactured by highly, highly competent organizations which can produce whatever gems are required of them.
DominikR 13y ago
Putin is not agains homosexuality, he has concerns that the persons behind the gay rights protests are in fact trying to facilitate a colour revolution style coup. link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution Another move that makes it plausible that this is in fact his reasoning for the "gay propaganda" law is the "foreign agent" law. The foreign agent law makes it mandatory for NGO's to be transparent about who they are associated with, and from which foreign country they receive money. To me, this paranoia is going overboard, but on the other hand there are precedents where coups happened after NGO's, that received money and other resources from foreign governments, incited protests. And inciting protests from within is probably one of the few options left, if you want to facilitate a regime change in Russia, since conventional war is not going to go well with that many nukes on both sides of the table.

coffeemug 13y ago

Unfortunately you have to know a bit of Russian to pick up on this, but if you watch/read Russian media for a while it becomes obvious how this paragraph is a comical bit of hypocrisy. The Russians in general and Putin in particular talk all the time about how the Russian soul is exceptional, how Russia is somehow different from western democracies and has its own unique (and largely mystical) economic and political path, how you can't understand it with intellect and can only believe in it (which is a classic bit of Russian poetry internalized by pretty much everyone), and how the Russians are somehow more "spiritual" than everyone else. Putin has the knack for coming off as fairly reasonable to the western audience, but to someone who was born and raised in the former Soviet Union this reads like something from the Onion. EDIT: here is a specific example to illustrate my point. In a recent interview, here is how Putin characterized the difference between the American and Russian "soul". He brought up a quote by the main heroine from Gone with the Wind where she said "I can't imagine what it would be like to be hungry all the time". Putin then pointed out that something like this is a primary concern of an American soul (implying base concerns for physical comforts), while this wouldn't be a concern for the Russian soul, which allegedly is concerned with much more important spiritual matters. This isn't an isolated example -- this happens all the time. Going on NYT and criticizing american exceptionalism seems incredibly hypocritical to me. EDIT2: I also feel compelled to point out either the sleaziness or sloppy thinking (you decide which one) of taking a single character from a work of fiction and extrapolating it to a conclusion about an entire people (of course in service of "proving" that Americans are far baser people than the Russians).

Demiurge 13y ago
>you can't understand it with intellect and can only believe in it (which is a classic bit of Russian poetry internalized by pretty much everyone) It's not poetry, it's a self critical fable. It's so obvious too, "you can't understand it" because it's not logical. This is in line with everyone being proud of how Russian roads are the worst in the world. This particular attitude of being exceptional, regardless if it's exceptionally corrupt or drunk, is perpendicular to the concept of exceptionalism by the virtue of being chosen by God as special people. The concept of American self-righteousness does not exist in Russia the way it does in US. >Putin has the knack for coming off as fairly reasonable to the western audience, but to someone who was born and raised in the former Soviet Union this reads like something from the Onion. I'm curious, were you born and raised in the former Soviet Union?