{"id":276,"date":"2005-01-07T00:02:45","date_gmt":"2005-01-07T00:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2005\/01\/07\/merry-sodding-orthodox-christmas\/"},"modified":"2008-02-27T13:44:14","modified_gmt":"2008-02-27T13:44:14","slug":"merry-sodding-orthodox-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2005\/01\/merry-sodding-orthodox-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Merry Sodding Orthodox Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

And to celebrate<\/a>, why not check out a rather good round-up<\/a> of how Vladimir Putin seems to be following in the fine tradition of psychotic Russian despots<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Then why not follow up with a bit more on Andrei Illarionov<\/a>, the brave Presidential aide and economic advisor<\/a> who risked going public with his concerns about Putin’s policies<\/a> – especially regarding the Yukos scam<\/a> – and was sacked<\/a> for his pains? (And will he soon disappear for re-education like other critics of the regime<\/a> or be silenced by other methods<\/a>, one wonders?)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Yukos is left at a loss over how to get out of this one<\/a> – as Illarionov rightly pointed out<\/a>, “This entire affair regrettably demonstrates that any of the official or semiofficial explanations given to the public regarding the Yukos affair do not have a leg to stand on”. The same could be said about official Russian proclamations on pretty much any aspect of society.<\/p>\n

Putin’s style of government is becoming increasingly reminiscent of the tactics of the Soviets under which he first made a name for himself. Perhaps the best Christmas present the West could offer ordinary Russians<\/a> is finally to condemn Putin<\/a> for what he is – a thoroughly unpleasant bastard<\/a>. I mean, hey – we got rid of Saddam because he was a tyrant – why not the equally undemocratic<\/a> and autocratic<\/a> Putin?<\/p>\n

But then again, we really, really can’t risk pissing him off…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And to celebrate, why not check out a rather good round-up of how Vladimir Putin seems to be following in the fine tradition of psychotic Russian despots? Then why not follow up with a bit more on Andrei Illarionov, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-former-ussr","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}