Putin update: Is he killing millions of Jews right now?

[calitennis127]

I haven't been following the situation in Russia closely, but I was wondering how that genocide over there was unfolding. Maybe the Russo-phobes on this board could let me know.

According to Kieran, Moxie, Bill O'Reilly, Hillary Clinton, and "I'm going to inflict pain" John McCain, Putin is the next Hitler (which gave him the honor of being, I believe, the 44th world leader since Adolf Hitler to be compared to Adolf Hitler by Americans). About a month ago, we were told that him putting 16,000 troops in eastern Ukraine was going to lead to something disastrous. It was never specified what that would be, but it was just stated that Putin's "Hitler-like" behavior would lead to something disastrous. So I am just wondering if anyone has an update on the Holocaust going on in Russia right now? How many Jews have been killed so far by that evil dictator Vladimir Putin? 2 million? 4 million?

Could you all let me know?

Thanks.

I'm just trying to draw a historical comparison here between Hitler and Putin. I want it to be as precise as possible. I know none of you would draw such an analogy lightly. Never, not in a million years.

 

[Kieran]

I'm not sure you're too familiar with history: Hitler didn't do everything in a single month. And the full extent of his evil wasn't apparent when he started his invasions.

And if you paid attention to these things, buddy, you'll see that Putin's justification for annexing a part of a foreign state mirrors Hitler's justification for entering the Sudetenland. That, and they're both power-hungry brutal tyrants. Hence...

EDIT: I don't think anybody compared Putin as a straight up example of being as evil as Hitler. We see comparisons made all the time on the basis of a single stroke in tennis, for example. I don't think Putin is going to gas 6 million Jews and how many other peoples and races and religions. I'm surprised this has to be explained, actually...

 

[calitennis127]

I'm not sure you're too familiar with history: Hitler didn't do everything in a single month. And the full extent of his evil wasn't apparent when he started his invasions.

Putin has been in power for a very long time now. Hitler started doing his work in 1933 and initiated a war in 1939. Putin has been at the helm for much longer than 6 years and he has been more of a force of peace in the world than a force of war. He has actually kept the United States from starting wars. There is no comparison between Putin and Hitler in that regard.

EDIT: I don't think anybody compared Putin as a straight up example of being as evil as Hitler. We see comparisons made all the time on the basis of a single stroke in tennis, for example. I don't think Putin is going to gas 6 million Jews and how many other peoples and races and religions. I'm surprised this has to be explained, actually...

No, it must be explained and clarified because what gives the Hitler comparison potency is that his regime carried out the Holocaust. What made him unique in history was not shutting down opposition political parties and publications, imprisoning political opponents, or arresting people without just cause. In America, we had three presidents do the exact same thing and they are praised by our leftist education establishment as the greatest presidents in American history (Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt). Rather, what makes the Hitler comparison a powerful one is precisely that he perpetrated a genocide on the basis of ethnicity. So, if we are going to compare someone to him, we should make sure that component is in place beforehand. Otherwise, there is no reason someone could be making the Hitler comparison other than to smear someone they don't like.

Let me list some of the Hitler comparisons I have heard in recent years:

- Saddam Hussein is like Hitler
- Kim Jong Ill is like Hitler
- Mahmoud Ahmedinjad is like Hitler
- Bashir al-Assad is like Hitler
- Hugo Chavez is like Hitler
- Vladimir Putin like Hitler
- George Bush is like Hitler (according to anti-war protesters and illegal immigrant protesters)
- Barack Obama is like Hitler (according to some Tea Party protesters)

These comparisons are now so routine and so frivolous that they have become a public absurdity.

The only one of the above who truly deserves the comparison, arguably, would be Saddam Hussein since he did attack the Kurds as a group.

 

[Kieran]

Buddy, there's a lot of tyrants who've been like Hitler, and some who have been worse than him. Some not so bad. Charlie Chaplin had a moustache like Hitler. Or maybe it's the other way around.

I know what you're getting at, that people are scare-mongering, and people are lazy, and there might be some validation in that. But it doesn't mean that comparisons aren't also valid, once they're qualified. And in fairness to myself, when you first mentioned this, I did say that nobody was comparing Putin to every single thing that Hitler ever did (including the 'tache)...

 

[britbox]

There is no genocide as I'm sure you're aware. It was pretty much a bloodless manoeuvre by Putin and the Crimeans wanted to align with Russia.

There are rumblings of discontent in some other Eastern Ukrainian cities - Donetsk and Kharkiv and Luhansk. How this plays out... we'll see.

Demonizing leaders is an ancient component of propaganda... Saddam Hussein only became demonized for gassing Kurds when he ceased to be controlled by western powers. Strangely enough, he was never demonized for gassing Iranians. I wonder why?!

 

[calitennis127]

Buddy, there's a lot of tyrants who've been like Hitler, and some who have been worse than him. Some not so bad. Charlie Chaplin had a moustache like Hitler. Or maybe it's the other way around.

I know what you're getting at, that people are scare-mongering, and people are lazy, and there might be some validation in that. But it doesn't mean that comparisons aren't also valid, once they're qualified. And in fairness to myself, when you first mentioned this, I did say that nobody was comparing Putin to every single thing that Hitler ever did (including the 'tache)...

But, again Kieran, what gives the Hitler comparison potency is that he was responsible for one of the worst crimes in human history. Aside from the Holocaust, his behavior as a political dictator was not unique in world history - as you acknowledge.

So why don't people compare Putin to Abraham Lincoln for shutting down the political opposition in Russia? Lincoln put 20,000 people in a prison in New York during the Civil War for disagreeing with the war. Sounds like Putin is a Lincolnian.

The Hitler comparison is meant as a cheap-shot, a scornful low blow to Putin and pretty much every world leader the United States regime doesn't like. It is not a sensible comparison most of the time.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

The feces will really hit the fan if Putin wants Alaska back too, as Russia sold it to the US for what, $7.2 or something like that in 1867. Joking aside, the Hitler comparisons, not just here but in general, are just too easy...I am sure Jewish people are not thrilled with the comparisons either...

 

[TsarMatt]

Putin gets demonised way too much in Western media because he does not bend and succumb to Western hegemony and dominion, unlike say, Boris Yeltsin, who was nothing more than a puppet.

Still, he has managed to completely monopolise Russia's political landscape and implemented -- what is to some degree -- an authoritarian way of governing. Funnily enough, he is still as popular as ever. I think a lot of this derives from Russia's history. They do not know how to govern themselves, and I am not being contradictory here. For so long they lived under a despotic communist regime, and, before that, centuries of autocracy. Once the Federation was formed and the shock therapy was implemented, Russia went into complete disarray, and this was supposed to be a time of Western-orchestrated democracy; civil disobedience was alarmingly high, and their entire economy just plunged as a large portion of the nations' wealth was operated by oligarchs (many of whom were coincidentally Jewish, no less). People during the 90s in Russia wanted communism back because at least there were some degrees of stability embedded in their political and social frameworks. This is how bad it was getting. This period of 'democracy' was mismanaged and botched to extreme levels. Then along came Putin who promised prosperity, recovery, and stability only at the expense of centralising power back into the Kremlin. He's also very patriotic, and reinforces Russian traditionalist values as opposed to Western-forced ones. It worked, and the Russian people love him for that, despite Putin being in control since 1999 and probably up until 2030.


Putin has many despotic tendencies and Russia has numerous problems, but which states don't? The problem with Western media is they neglect to examine the situation from the standpoint of Russian culture, ideology and tradition. They view it through the lenses of Westernisation, and that is simply a bad way to go about it because all you are getting is distortions. Do I agree with Putin's monopolisation of Russia's politics? No. Do I agree with his suppression of free speech, predominately in the field of journalism? No. But the Russian people idealise him and a lot of this stems from their historical reliant on big, centralised government. Many in the West went through periods of democratic transparency, but Russia haven't. They can't govern themselves. They haven't had the opportunity to do so yet. Putin is a good mix between large, commanding government and some democratic tendencies. Many political scientists say Russia is fundamentally operating as an 'illiberal democracy', and I can agree with that.

But yes, equating Hitler with Putin is moronic in the extreme.