Roger Waters Comments About The Minsk Agreements Were Removed From Main CNN Video That Went Viral + Another Interview

CNN’s Attempt To Police Roger Waters

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Video: The full Roger Waters interview with Michael Smerconish

West can end fighting in Ukraine tomorrow – Roger Waters

Belarus to abandon outreach to West & focus foreign policy on developing relationship with Russia & China – influential senior MP

Belarus to abandon outreach to West & focus foreign policy on developing relationship with Russia & China – influential senior MP

In his opinion, Belarus’ “top priority” should now be “strengthening political, economic and military relations with Russia, within the framework of the Union State.” The MP also noted that the country should focus on its relationships with China, India, Iran, Turkey and Vietnam, to help the country become part of a “Eurasian macroregion.”

[2016] One of Russia’s looniest far-right ideologues endorses Donald Trump

Aleksandr Dugin’s neo-imperialist “Eurasianism” provided ideological support for Putin’s Ukraine invasion.
— Read on www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11142048/dugin-russia-trump-endorse

Dugin is no longer relevant to Putin!

But when I met with Dugin’s own allies in Moscow last spring, I found that they were isolated and despondent, and no longer considered Putin an ally — but rather saw him as their enemy.

It turns out that Dugin had been dumped by the Russian establishment in 2014, just as his usefulness ran out. Putin had stopped short of overtly invading Ukraine, infuriating Dugin and other far-right leaders who wanted Russia to take part or all of Ukraine. When those far-right leaders agitated for escalation, using their newfound public influence to pressure Putin, the Kremlin put them down.

In June 2014, Putin formally rescinded an earlier order that had granted Russia legal authority to invade Ukraine — indicating he would not invade overtly. The next week, as part of a larger crackdown on far-right voices, Dugin was expelled from his prestigious job at Moscow State University.

But in spring 2015, when I traveled to Moscow, I found the once-triumphant Duginists and ultranationalists no longer saw Putin as an ally, and even considered him a traitor to the cause. Some had been pressured by security services, which they took as a sign that their views were no longer tolerated. Meanwhile, Putin had largely dropped his grand Eurasianist rhetoric.

In retrospect, it seems likely that Putin’s short-lived embrace of Duginism was opportunistic and superficial.

[2016] ‘Putin’s Rasputin’ has lauded Donald Trump as a ‘sensation’

“I think his influence is greatly exaggerated — in the first place, by himself,” Dr. Daniel Treisman, a UCLA political scientist and author of The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev, told ThinkProgress. “There is a great temptation to find a ‘thinker’ behind every ‘political actor.’ If the ideas of a certain writer correspond to some of the actions of a given political leader, then that is often considered proof of influence. Inconsistencies are ignored. And then, purveyors of extreme political ideologies are often good at self-promotion.”

Dugin may have been one of a litany of radical right wing ideologues supportive of Putin’s annexation of Crimea — but it seems that when Putin stopped needing their backing, he turned on them. In mid-2014 Dugin lost his job at Moscow University, where he headed the sociology department.

Max Fisher, then of Vox, traveled to Russia in spring 2015 to meet Dugin’s cohorts; he said they were “isolated and despondent, and no longer considered Putin an ally — but rather saw him as their enemy.”
— Read on thinkprogress.org/putins-rasputin-has-lauded-donald-trump-as-a-sensation-8de320369bc1/