The Sudden Deaths Of Russians Putin Dislikes Or Distrusts

Every few days it seems another notable Russian dies mysteriously. Some of them appear to be political executions, particularly the Putin critics who are poisoned with plutonium in London. But recently, since the election especially, Russian diplomats have also begun dying suddenly along with the now familiar death toll of Putin's critics. The Russian UN ambassador died this week in New York. Cause unknown, thus far. Then yesterday a Russian diplomat died in Athens, in his apartment, doors locked, no sign of violence, which would ordinarily be recorded as death by natural causes except for the surprising rate of Russian deaths lately and the innovative methods used to perform some of the executions we know about.

Did Putin’s anointing of the new American president open a door for him to learn which Russian officials are friendly with the Americans? Has he gotten a peek at the CIA’s list of assets? Is Putin systematically offing America’s intelligence sources in Russia and elsewhere?

Another troubling aspect of this is the frequency with which Russian journalists and Putin’s critics die suddenly or violently or suspiciously. Putin’s BFF who is now our president approves of Putin’s methods and admires his “control” over his country, which presumably includes Putin’s penchant for having critics and journalists murdered. Trump has begun purging media outlets from their normal access to White House press briefings if they have published news Trump dislikes (inconvenient truths). He has not begun killing them, nor is it likely he will, but Trump’s followers (I wish they would wear brown shirts so we could identify them) have been threatening journalists and experts who appear on television and say things that offend or embarrass Trump, often with colorful abusive racist and sexist language indicating their plans to decapitate them after raping them, which is something not even Putin does.

In any case sudden death is a trend among Russians Putin dislikes or ones he may have secretly decided to distrust, and Putin is our president’s role model.

From the Palmer Report, a list of the seven Russian officials to die since the Trump/Russia intrigue began.

From the BBC, the latest sudden death in Athens.

From TheWeek, the sudden death of the Russian UN Ambassador.

From The Independent, the story about the Putin critic who shot to death on his birthday. No witnesses.

The BBC has the story about the Putin critic who survived one poison attack and now has been poisoned again.

From Politifact, analysis and fact-checking: Does Putin Murder His Critics?

From NPR: the Curious Deaths of Kremlin Critics.

From CNN, the 2015 murder of Boris Nemtsov

We might ask, were these people marked as Enemies of the People before they died?

Trump's Goal Is The End Of Our Democracy

What does President Bannon want? He wants to destroy our system of government. He wants to fulfill what Grover Norquist wished for some years ago, to degrade and weaken and diminish government to the point where he can drown it in the bathtub. That’s what he outlined in his speech to CPAC the other day. He sees Trump as his vehicle for destroying our democratic form of government, our government by the people and for the people, as Lincoln described it.

Bannon sees structure and rules and systems and fair play and good government as evil. The only government he wants is government by him or someone he can manipulate. This is why there's so much admiring talk about Putin. We may learn, if the Republican Congress doesn't manage to cover it up, that Putin is operating Bannon and Trump. Like puppets, as Hillary pointed out and Trump lamely disputed.

Bannon's speech reported in the Washington Post

Many of these antidemocratic and unAmerican ideas have been there for years, spoken out loud by Republicans. Take the famous 1980 speech by Paul Weyrich, one of the architects of the Reagan Revolution rubbishing the idea of letting all Americans vote and deriding “good government” as a kind of evil delusion, what he called “GooGoo.” They thought and still think democracy is a nuisance, democracy is childish, democracy is foolish and evil. They are now closer than ever to achieving their dream of making America a white Christian (sic) authoritarian state.

Video of the infamous Paul Weyrich speech is on YouTube and it is chillingly prescient.

Masha Gessen wrote an article for the New York Review of Books shortly after the election in which she warned about the ways an autocrat degrades democratic norms. She’d seen it in Russia under Putin. The playbook looks very much like the playbook of the Trump/Bannon White House.

Ron Rosenbaum, one of the best analysts we have of the psychology of the Nazi regime, wrote an equally sharp warning about Trump in the LA Review of Books. I urge you to read and share both articles.

Both these articles warn that what a determined tyrant does first is discredit and destroy the news media, beginning with the journalists who don’t take dictation but actually analyze and criticize what he is doing. Which is what journalists are supposed to do. Without journalists reporting the truth we are powerless.