By now we have all read of the death of Alexei Navalny in a Siberian prison camp. Nearly every news outlet has an article about it. This one from the substack Liberal Patriot is a good one:
Death of a Russian Liberal Patriot - by Brian Katulis
From the article:
"Why Alexei Navalny’s demise is another wakeup call for the cause of freedom in the world—and at home. "
"Like most political leaders around the world, Navalny wasn’t the same person at the end of his public life as he was when he started. He fought against an entrenched, corrupt dictatorship in his own country that has used brutal repression at home and prosecuted expansionist neo-imperialist wars abroad in places like Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria to maintain its grip on power. Towards the end of his life, Navalny worked to advance a new type of Russian nationalism not rooted in xenophobia or opposed
"He fought against an entrenched, corrupt dictatorship in his own country that has used brutal repression at home and prosecuted expansionist neo-imperialist wars abroad in places like Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria to maintain its grip on power.
"..Navalny appeared to evolve as a person and in his career as a political leader, eventually sketching out a form of Russian liberal patriotism..."
"Navalny sought to build a broader coalition inside of Russia. Navalny was a Russian nationalist, but his views and positions on how to define that nationalism evolved substantially over the years,"
"A previous attempt to murder him by Russian authorities in 2020—detailed in Navalny, the must-see documentary film released in 2022—pushed him further into the international spotlight and perhaps made him even more dependent on international support at the expense of sinking deeper roots inside of Russia"
Navalny opposed Russia’s wars of imperialism.
"...Navalny’s death serves as a vivid reminder that the true systems of repression and oppression use death and destruction to stay in power. According to Freedom House’s most recent “Freedom in the World” report, the global tides of freedom have ebbed for 17 years in a row. Things haven’t been getting much better during the past year, with flawed elections and armed conflicts among the key forces undercutting freedom around the world. "
I wouldn't have had the courage to do what Navalny did, which was to go back to Russia knowing that he faced almost certain death. In a sense he became a martyr to his cause of freedom for his country. His witness stands in stark contrast to some of our own pusillanimous members of government and political candidates who are unable to stand up to Donald Trump and face his scorn and vitriol.
Navalny was in and out of a dizzying number of political parties and movements. I'm not sure what to make of him, but he was certainly persistent and he certainly was not motivated by monetary gain or his own physical well being. Whether his story cows or inspires Russians remains to be seen.
ReplyDeleteThe Joseph Goebbels types whom Trump's got grinding out narratives for him are trying to cast him as a similarly persecuted defender of American greatness. And lots of people are buying it. File under "You Can't Make This Sh*t Up."
What I have read is that Trump is comparing his situation to Navalny's because, just like Navalny, "he" is so persecuted. Trump always makes it about himself.
DeleteTrump makes me feel physically ill at this point.
DeleteI'm interested to see what happens in the primary here next week. There is a big push in urban areas to get people to vote "uncommitted" in the Dem primary to signal dislike for Grampa Joe's Israel policies. Younger voters may do that. Older Dems seem more inclined to cross over to the GOP ballot and vote for Nikki Haley.
DeleteWhat's very weird is the utter lack of political rallies, mail flyers, or advertising on local TV, especially given that Michigan is a big swing state. Quite a noticeable shift in political messaging strategies. Not that I am complaining abt the lack of Trump ads ...
I don't get the idea that even the younger Dem-leaning voters who have soured on Biden over Israel want to vote for Trump. I could see them going for Dean Phillips or even RFK Jr.
DeleteIs it too much to hope for that maybe Trump's brand is starting to sour?
Young voters will just not bother to vote, I think. I see no evidence that Trump's support is wavering. His 30 percent base is solid and unwavering. Around the periphery of that core are Repubs who may not like him, but do like his stance on one or more of issues they see as non negotiable, whether it's immigration, abortion, withdrawal from foreign alliances/agreements, deficit spending, education reform, whatever's left of affirmative action, whatever.
DeleteI think we have to give Navalny credit for speaking truth to power.
ReplyDeleteEarlier today, I read a speech of his from 2014, given in a Russian courtroom. The gist of it was: on the whole, Russians are cowed by Putin and the kleptocrats allied with him. At that point - and presumably up to the end of his life - he had no hope that his dissidence would lead to some dramatic change or uprising. His take was more along the lines of, 'This regime' - in the speech, he described it as a "junta" - 'is constructed on an edifice of lies. I'm choosing not to accept the lies. Most Russians lack the courage to do likewise. I have no illusions that this resistance will amount to much, or anything, concrete. So be it. I'll keep working to reveal the truth and oppose the lies until I'm stopped.'
Yes. He is in the same tradition as other nonviolent protesters. Sadly, for nonviolent protests to do any goid there has to be press coverage and public outrage. The Russian press coverage of Navalny is pretty thin and often negative, according to some studies. There are blogs and vlogs that are sympathetic, but Russians tend to be pretty cynical about all these channels of info because they have never had a reliable modern free press.
DeleteBest thing to start with is to NOT trust official and mainstream media, no matter what your country. Our own media brackets thinking. Even CNN didn't report on climate change or link weather events with increased CO2 until we reached the 21st century. I get my news from Democracy Now, America Magazine, Commonweal, National Catholic Reporter and more recently the Substack blogs of Matt Taibbi and Chris Hedges. If I only used mainstream media, I would be unaware of much. Russians may still have skills for interpreting news developed during the Soviet Era. I hope so. Navalny's murder is monstrous. Putin is monstrous. And here, the persecution of foreign national Julian Assange is the US analogue for the Russian government's murder of Navalny and their journalists. In our case, the CIA wants to make an example of Assange. The man is a physical and mental wreck. He has spent five years in the worst British prison and is launching a final appeal against extradition. No matter what one's opinion of his release of secret data given to him, I don't see how a legitimate legal case can be made against him. I don't think much of the British legal system so far. They seem to be capitulating to extralegal pressure from the US government. Great example to the rest of the world from the so-called liberal democracies.
ReplyDeleteI think discerning truth is hard.
DeleteNational Catholic Reporter and America do some original reporting for some church news coming out of the Vatican and the USCCB, and have sources elsewhere in the church and academia. But for a lot of topics they cover, I think the mainstream media is shaping the story.
I agree with your comment that the mainstream media brackets thinking, including your contention that the government can exert undue influence on media coverage.
Conservatives have been wearing out the theme of mainstream media bias for decades now. Unlike many of the conservative complainers, I don't think the bias is intentional, much less a conspiracy to bring about progressive political outcomes. I just think that the large news reporting organizations are a bit culturally and psychographically "monochromatic" in who they hire - even as they all work to diversify in terms of race, gender, et al. They really would benefit by employing a diversity of viewpoints.
But I continue to believe that, with their limitations and biases, mainstream media is more reliable than the alternatives out there. When I post here, I try to link to mainstream news reports as much as possible. And the country would be considerably less fractured if more Americans trusted mainstream news outlets more than they trust Fox News, Newsmax, right-wing talk radio, et al.