Mike Whitney – Information Clearing House December 3, 2007
Garry Kasparov should give up politics and do what he does best; stand-up comedy.
Watching Kasparov traipse around Moscow with his basket of sour grapes and his entourage of western media-stooges is like watching "Mr. Bean's Excellent Kremlin Adventure"---a particularly lame performance in a dismal B-rated burlesque. It's painful to watch.
On Sunday, while Putin's party "United Russia" was screeching to a landslide victory; Reuters News was busy taking mug-shots of the stony-faced Kasparov holding up Florida-style ballots claiming the voting was rigged.
"They are not just rigging the vote," Kasparov moaned, "They are raping the whole electoral system. These elections are a reminder of Soviet elections when there was no choice.....Putin is going to have a hard time trying to rule like Stalin."
Stalin? So now Putin is Stalin?
First of all, when did Reuters begin to take an interest in voting irregularities? It must be a recent development, since they were nowhere to be found in the 2000 presidential election. And when did they start to pay attention to "dissenting voices"? They certainly never wasted any video-footage on the antiwar rallies in the US. Are we to believe that they are more interested in democracy in Russia than in America?
And why is Reuters so eager to provide valuable column-space to a washed-up chess-jockey whose only interest is flogging the Russian President while making unsubstantiated charges of voter fraud? Is that news or just propaganda?
As for Kasparov and his silly accusations; he should be glad that he lives in Putin's Russia rather than Stalin's or he'd be in leg-irons right now boarding a northbound train to the Siberian outback.
What is Kasparov doing in Moscow anyway? And why is this little man--with virtually no political base--such a big part of the western media narrative? Is he only there to discredit the election and throw a little more muck on Putin or is there more to it than that? Kasparov's party, the "Other Russia" couldn't manage even a 2% rating in the polls. The party is a complete dud. In fact, Reuters even (reluctantly) admits as much in its article.
Here's the clip. Reuters:
"Kasparov and his "Other Russia" dissident movement are not standing in Sunday's parliamentary election because they could not get registered as a party. THEY ENJOY LITTLE PUBLIC SUPPORT AMONG RUSSIANS BUT HAVE A BIG FOLLOWING IN THE WEST." (Reuters)
"Big following in the West"? Why doesn't that surprise me?
So, in other words, Kasparov has no base of support in Russia, and yet he gets his own camera crew and media team to follow him around recording every silly he says. That's just great. Who do they think he is; Nelson Mandela?
Kasparov is a contributing editor of Murdoch's Wall Street Journal; so he already has a regular platform for launching his tirades on the "tyrannical" Mr. Putin. Normally, one doesn't get a spot on the op-ed page of the WSJ unless their politics are somewhere to the right of Augusto Pinochet. That's probably the case with Kasparov, too.
In Saturday's edition of the WSJ, Kasparov delivered his latest absurd soliloquy- disparaging Putin and recounting his agonizing 5 day ordeal in the Moscow poky. What a travesty. It seems that Kasparov's delicate physical make-up made it impossible for him to eat prison food so "thanks to growing pressure , they allowed me to receive food packages from home". (WSJ)
Did you hear that, Bobby Sands?
Kasparov also added, "Some commentators even suspected I wanted to provoke my own arrest for publicity, a chess players far-sighted strategy."
Heaven forbid! Who could possibly think that this was all a stage-managed publicity stunt orchestrated by western power-brokers? What cynicism? "Is that T-bone done to your liking, Mr. Kasparov, or should we open another 'food package from home"'?
Although Kasparov has garnered little public support in Russia, he appears to have a loyal following among the Washington elite. According to Wikipedia:
"In 1991, Kasparov received the Keeper of the Flame award from the Center for Security Policy (a US think tank), for anti-Communist resistance and the propagation of democracy. Kasparov was an exceptional recipient since the award is given to "individuals for devoting their public careers to the defense of the United States and American values around the world".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov
Hmmmm...."For devoting their public careers to the defense of the United States and American values around the world"? Isn't that a definition of an American agent?
Again, according to Wikipedia:
In April, 2007 it was asserted that Kasparov was a board member of the National Security Advisory Council of the Center for Security Policy, a non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security". Kasparov confirmed this and added that he was removed shortly after he became aware of it. He noted that HE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE MEMBERSHIP and suggested he was included in the board by an accident because he received the 1991 Keeper of the Flame award from this organization. But Kasparov maintained his association with the neoconservative leadership by giving speeches at think tanks such as the Hoover Institute."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov Here's a list of some of the other fellow travelers who've been given the "Keeper of the Flame Award":
2007-Senator Joe Lieberman. 2004-General Peter Pace. 2003- Paul Wolfowitz. 2002- General Richard Meyers. 1998-Donald Rumsfeld. 1996-Newt Gingrich. 1995-Ronald Reagan. 1990-Casper Weinberger.
Is Kasparov an anomaly or does he fit right in with this coven of far-right loonies?
And who are some of the prominent members of the Center for Security Policy?
Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Frank Gaffney, James Roche and Laura Ingraham.
Oh, boy. The whole front office of the neocon's cuckoo's nest.
Now tell me, dear reader, with friends like that; what should we really think about Kasparov's performance in Moscow? Is he really interested in "democracy promotion" as he claims or is their acting out a script that was prepared in Washington?
In the US, Kasparov has become the focal point of the Russian elections---the primary source of "unbiased" analysis. NPR reiterates his spurious claims every half hour. The other news agencies are no better. He has become the distorted lens through which Americans view Russian democracy. This says a lot more about the choke-hold the neocons still have on the media rather than anything objective about Russia.
The Kasparov fiasco gives us a chance to see the inner-workings of the establishment media. It's nothing more than a propaganda bullhorn for far-right organizations executing their bloody imperial strategy. Fidel Castro summed it up best just days ago when he said:
"It is the most sophisticated media ever developed by technology, employed to kill human beings and to subjugate or exterminate peoples".
Amen to that, Fidel.
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Last updated 05/12/2007
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