Those of us who thought Russian press freedom was dead may have to reconsider after this article from Novaya Gazeta that not only praises President Obama’s ambitious agenda and “prays” for his success, it strongly criticizes President Putin’s piece-meal approach to addressing the crisis in Russia.
After explaining to Russian readers that the markets haven’t responded well to “Plan Obama,” Alexander Polukhin, the Economics Editor for Novaya Gazeta, writes in part:
“But the average U.S. citizen is much more interested in the section of Plan Obama that deals with modernizing the real economy and social sphere. This is of interest not only to American minds. We, for instance, have no such plan in the form of a systemic document (miscellaneous measures – regardless of the effectiveness of each – do not count). Therefore, the American experience is useful – at least as an object of white envy [or friendly jealously].”
“Here, the prime minister [Putin] utters the word ‘crisis’ in dead-end situations only, the term long having been unofficially banned from central television. The department here that has been designated to confront the crisis is called The Governmental Commission on Sustainable Development of the Russian Economy, which is pretty extreme even for Newspeak. The government stubbornly conceals the true state of affairs, believing it better not to put plans to paper and wait until America crawls out of its crisis, pulling the world economy – and along with it, God willing, Russia’s, along with it.”
By Alexander Polukhin*
Translated By Yekaterina Blinova
February 27, 2009
Russia – Novaya Gazeta – Original Article (Russian)
As you know, Barack Obama went into the election with the slogan, “Change We Need.” But his formula could have been: “We Need a Plan.” The country, enchanted with the new president, waited for Plan Obama as if awaiting a revelation. It seemed that any moment he would find a recipe for the salvation of the national economy. In the end, a many-paged document that called for spending $787 billion received a cool reception by the markets. However the bankers have their own problems, the net value of which is up in the trillions of a.u. (arbitrary units).
But the average U.S. citizen is much more interested in the section of Plan Obama that deals with modernizing the real economy and social sphere. This is of interest not only to American minds. We, for instance, have no such plan in the form of a systemic document (miscellaneous measures – regardless of the effectiveness of each – do not count). Therefore, the American experience is useful – at least as an object of white envy [friendly jealously].
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