Vladimir Putin in 1998. Vladimir Putin in 2013. Death toll estimates for the First and Second Chechen Wars: 160,000. Hypocrisy in World Politics: Universal, ubiquitous, and eternal. Relevance of this debate to the suffering of the Syrian people: Zero. The Washington Post did a fact-check on Putin’s op-ed. These criticisms notwithstanding, we should all understand that Putin’s op-ed resonated strongly with the sentiments of a very large segment of the global population.
Income inequality in the US continues to worsen. According to a recent study the top 10 percent of income earners in the US took home 50 percent of all income. That disparity is the highest ever recorded in US history (since the records began in 1917). According to the study “…from 2009 to 2012, income for the 1 percent grew by 31.4 percent, while everyone else only saw it grow by 0.4 percent. That means the 1 percent ‘captured 95 percent of the income gains in the first three years of the recovery,'”
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I’d like to address the income issue. In the past jobs considered minimum wage work, like fast food restaurants, were jobs held by teenagers and young college students. Now these jobs are typically held by adults, many trying to support families, many still needing help from programs such as the foodstamp/SNAP program. As this is happening there is cutting of the foodstamp program from the farm bill, a bill which provides farm subsidies to some members of congress who own land considered subsidy eligible on top of their decent government salary and benefits.
Putin made some interesting observations about our country. Just because he’s being hypocritical doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
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I certainly agree with your comment about Putin. A lot of what he wrote was quite accurate and valid.
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