Pootie Poot

Vladimir Putin has been proclaimed as Time's Person of the Year 2007. Not a bad choice. I make no excuses, I don't know too much about Putin, other than that Bush calls him "Pootie" sometimes, or modern Russia, other than they and China are making trade deals with Iran that make the US government kind of sad. What I found particularly fascinating about the article was the discussion of whether or not Russians wanted freedom, or at least our definition of it. (Mostly, we're talking about freedom of the press). It then went on to describe Putin as the next Russian tsar, which may very well be true, even though the label of tsar will never be used. Elections in Russia don't mean very much.

My first reaction was to say that was a very xenophobic way of looking at things; believing that the Russians are so backwards that they have this desire to be dominated. But could it actually be true? The Russian economy is doing very well, perhaps people are more accepting of less freedom if they can meet their basic economic needs. Maybe money can buy happiness. I think this must be the case. It certainly sounds a lot nicer than assuming the Russian people are drawn to autocrats.