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Friedman Attempts “Bash Putin” Stick – Screws Up For Hubris And Stupidity
A lame as ever Tom Friedman joins the Putin bashing circus and, as a hundred columnists before him, connects Putin to Trump to hit his real target. But as also characteristically for him, Friedman demonstrates a lack the knowledge and understanding that few others are able to reach. Thus, Putin is bad, because:
A 2015 report in The Moscow Times noted that “life expectancy in Russia has been growing several times slower than in the rest of the world for the past 20 years, according to a research by the U.S.-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.” That coincides almost exactly with Putin’s leadership of the country. The article explained, “During the period of 1990-2013 [life expectancy] only grew by 1.8 years in Russia, while the global average number increased by 6.2 years, pushing Russia out of the top 100 countries with the highest life expectancy and placing it in 108th position — between Iraq and North Korea.”
Here is graph with the life expectancy in Russia.
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One can obviously distinguish two periods with very different trends: In the 1990s the Harvard boys taught Russia a lesson in laissez-faire robbery. Life expectancy fell from 63.76 years for men in 1990 to 58.53 in the year 2003. It started to recover in 2005 and went up since. In 2010 life expectancy for men was back at 63.09 and in 2015 it reached 65.92.
How much of that was Putin's fault?
Putin became acting President of the Russian Federation on December 31 1999. Most of the 1990s he was First Deputy Chairman of the Government of Saint Petersburg – hardly the position that made him responsible for the health of the Russian nation. Putin was not at all responsible when life expectancy fell in Russia. But he was responsible when it again started to grow and is responsible for the success since.
In 2015 Russia ranked 110 in the WHO country list of life expectancy. Hardly great, but much better than 15 years earlier when Putin became responsible for the issue. During Putin's fifteen years in the top jobs life expectancy in Russia increased by some 7 years, nearly 12%.
Increasing the life expectancy of a nation is hardly the sign of a "strong" leader (whatever that may be). But it is a sign of a reasonably well led and working administration of a country.
Don't expect such in the U.S. if Tom Friedman's favorite candidate, Hillary Clinton, wins the presidency. The level of knowledge and decency of Friedman and Clinton are about par. As someone who knows personal failure, one Colin Powell, so nicely expressed:
"Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.”
Just see the (Friedman) example above. I for one would choose a Putin over a Hillary Clinton any time.
I smell desperation in the wind. P. Walker at 44.
Me too. I listened to HRC + DT at that meet for military types. (Half an hour each.) I’d have a lot to say about HRC’s health – she is in terrible, absolutely awful, mental shape – but it would be speculation, etc.
I also watched some MSM US tv clips on YT, plus reading MSM print and attacks on it, see b, comments on various boards. For the MSM to go so completely off the rails, wild, all-out crazed, smacks of utter panic, no place to turn. Something is going on, beyond hmm, what we can see or outline for the moment.
I have now shifted my view-point on the underlying issues and ramifications of this US Prez. election, see my previous posts or, I can detail if interest or considered relevant…
Why?
1) HRC’s dire health risks were, I now understand, clearly very well-known to the PTB (Dem insiders but not only, anyone at ‘top’, incl. R and MSM) and thus collusion at high + all levels to maintain her as a candidate was needed and implemented full-guns, by Obama amongst many others, incl. R’s. This was sort of evident before, but various reasons could explain it (Dynastic power, HRC being ‘chosen’, etc.)
2) The revelations about the Clinton Foundation, which I had assumed was a ‘fake charity’ used for paying ‘buddies’ and having parties and minor fraud etc. (very common in the US), now looks more like a global crime syndicate for money-laundering, criminal financial fraud, and probably or most certainly worse. (goog Charles Ortel for ex.) This is linked to the e-mail scandal.
The PTB (MSM…FBI -no indictement for e mail-.. Gvmt.. pundits..) stood behind not just the ‘Establishment’ candidate HRC (while vilifying DT, etc.) but behind a person who is an important part of a deep and hallucinatingly corrupt circuit with world-wide tentacles (of which Obama is a part. And which Putin knows all about…)
They expected to prevail as they hold the levers of power and information. However they are being undone by hackers, leaks, by DT himself (in some measure?), and by the electorate who is deeply angry, hates HRC, now has alt-media (from Alex Jones to twitter etc.) at hand. The R’s obviously preffered to sit this one out, and have D’s take the total melt-down hit (corrupt Washington, social upheavals) and therefore, Trump, an ‘outside’ candidate, who can later be hailed or rejected or whatever.
At present, the only crucial question is, how far if in *any direction* will DT go to clean house? If the pop. vote prevails, he will win by a landslide (it will be very difficult to fudge or annul it + the US PTB has a huge investment in maintaining the image of a democracy)? This is the question nobody can answer, but one can see from the 6 Sept (CNN poll) the polls playing catch up. It is slowly becoming accepted that Trump will be P, and the failure of the Ds will be blamed on HRC ‘health issues, poor lady, too sad’ .. ‘choosing the wrong candidate who turned out to be sick, a liar and a crook we now realise…’ and so on, hoping to get away with few mild indictements etc. to keep the current system going with just a few (if any) fall guys. The Rs are complicit.
Posted by: Noirette | Sep 15 2016 13:56 utc | 61
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