What’s wrong with Putin’s KGB government in the eyes of the West?
That, starting with the good colonel himself, it’s run by the same criminal, unreconstructed and unrepentant organisation that murdered 60 million of its own citizens and enslaved the rest?
That it has used diktat, murder, beatings and intimidation to suppress free press?
That it has been freely assassinating and even nuking its opponents, including in faraway places like London?
That it has reduced most commerce in Russia to organised crime, complete with top to bottom corruption, murder, blackmail, protection rackets, money laundering, bribery, international traffic in drugs and prostitution?
That it’s pushing through a clearly aggressive military build-up manifestly directed against the West?
That it’s arming and training terrorist organisations all over the world?
That it supports the West’s enemies with the same knee-jerk alacrity as in the days of communism?
That its internal propaganda is as shrill in its anti-Western invective as ever?
That it generously provides refuge to Western defectors and spies?
That it’s rebuilding the Soviet Union under the guise of economic cooperation?
No, none of those. If the West had any problems with such outrages, chances are we’d be boycotting Putin’s giant propaganda offensive, otherwise known as Sochi Olympics.
The only thing that rates some mild disapproval is the only right thing Putin’s government has done, if for all the wrong reasons: the ban on same-sex marriage and homosexual propaganda in schools.
This caused an outburst of indignation mixed with a small dose of envy. You see, Western ‘leaders’ would love to be able to introduce similar measures in their own countries, if only for the sake of sanity if nothing else.
But they can’t: having been sliding down the slippery PC slope for so long, they’re unable to arrest the downward momentum. They simply have to claim at least parity in the insanity sweepstakes with parties supposedly on their left.
Otherwise they can kiss their careers good-bye: the brainwashed masses won’t vote for them, and they have nothing like Putin’s latitude in rigging elections, which is another object of their envy.
Refusing, or perhaps unable, to recognise the global threat of a KGB Russia armed to the teeth, they have neither the nerve nor desire to boycott Putin’s answer to the 1936 Berlin Games.However, Putin’s only sin they do recognise as such, something they incongruously call ‘homophobia’, demands some knuckle-rapping response. Hence they’ve decided to play silly little games, the kind children play until they grow up and start living for real.
Rather than boycotting the Games like a man, François Hollande has taken the coward’s way out by saying his august persona won’t be in attendance at Sochi. Our own Dave is pondering a similar copout, and so are a few other ‘leaders’.
But my friend Barak Hussein has decided to go all those no-shows one better. Oh, both he and his Vice President won’t turn up either, that’s a given.
Yet Barack has also found an extra way of cocking the snook at the homophobe, an ingenious twist of the knife, or rather of the toothpick.
He, Barack, will send a US delegation to Sochi all right. But he’ll also send a message. This will be delivered by the composition of the select group, starting with its head.
In her previous capacity of Homeland Security Secretary, the current UCLA president Janet Napolitano was successfully sued for discrimination against male employees in favour of her female friends. One of the wronged parties, James Hayes Jr., hinted that Janet’s friendship with at least one of those women was especially close.
This gave rise to ugly rumours in the press, with the hacks salivating over the fact that the 56-year-old has never been married and looks a bit butch. Janet settled the lawsuit out of court, reportedly to the tune of $175,000, and denied the rumours.
She’s a workaholic, she explained, which is why she has never had time to get married. Even though one can plausibly infer that therefore married people are all slackers, one must take Janet’s denials at face value. But that’s not the point: the very existence of such widely publicised rumours sends a message to the colonel.
To make sure Putin isn’t deaf to such nuances, Barack decided to turn the volume up. Apart from a few fourth-tier officials, the US delegation includes six famous ex-athletes. Three of them, Brian Boitano, Billy Jean King and Caitlin Cahow are openly homosexual.
And in case the hearing-impaired homophobe still doesn’t get it, Barack made sure that one of the three, the tennis player King, played a non-wintry sport. Sports have nothing to do with it. If Putin can use the Olympics for extra-sport purposes, then so can Barack.
Don’t you just admire Western politicians and the skill with which they play their pathetic little games? On the one hand, Barack isn’t boycotting Sochi – he’s a responsible, internationally minded leader who believes that such festivals promote world peace, brotherhood, motherhood and other worthy things.
On the other hand, Barack fires a message at Putin, hoping it’ll ricochet back across the ocean: Barack champions all the other things our politicians are expected to champion, such as the absolute parity of all human relationships.
His Russian hosts describe this urge to send multi-tasking messages as trying to sit on two chairs with one a*** (no effeminate birds and stones for the macho Slavs). His American flock are counting the days remaining in Barack’s tenure, hoping he’ll be succeeded by a serious adult. Alas, that’s about as likely as Miss Napolitano giving (natural) birth.