IS PUTIN SANE?

This is not an attempt at flame-baiting (though that anyone might consider it flame-baiting, on a predominantly American &, secondarily, Western site, even if it had been my intention to talk smack about the leader of Russia, is a real commentary on our times). The title of the thread comes from this light read: easy-breezy, & short, yet hitting the top notes of an article by the NY Times, of which this seems, essentially, a digest.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/02/is-vladimir-putin-sane.html


My own run-down, on the main points, including things I have heard on the news, is that many have noticed a shift in Putin's behavior, over the last 2 years of Covid. He has retracted away from much contact with others, except a very small circle, of basically other spy-types, who have a very narrow, even paranoid, view of the world. I can't help notice, as I write it, the way the description bears resemblance to some who have been consumed in Qanon conspiracies, here.

Anyway, whenever Putin does meet with others, they must sit a great distance away. So perhaps "paranoid," might have been a better choice, by NY Mag, than, "sane." Admittedly, though, that can be a thin line, especially when one is already apart from others, being treated as a king. Still, one's being able to talk about using nuclear weapons, and not be just spouting some personal fantasy, puts into perspective the relative unimportance of the technicality, of whether or not that person's paranoia, crosses some academic line of classification.

Below, is both an amusing, and informative "Closer Look," by Late Night host, & comedian, Seth Myers, which touches upon the seeming fear of any of Putin's official council of advisors, to tell him anything he doesn't want to hear. I, of course, could try to make an analogy to Trump, but I think this is, more importantly, regarded as a typical feature which is created, by anyone who becomes very powerful, as the company president, a big-name film personage (star, director, or producer), or autocratic leader, of a country.

Watching just from about the 1- minute to the 6- minute marks, I think gives one, both the most humorous, and most informative part.






I close this OP, and open up the floor to comment, with the noting of a SUPREME IRONY. I have heard a journalist, Putin-watcher, suggest that the small group around Putin, have been shielding him, from unpleasant truths, basically painting a picture that is not only rosy, but fictional. The reporter, accustomed to Putin's speeches-- so therefore, how it appears when Putin is selling a lie, versus when he is speaking from his honest depths-- made a point of how sincere Putin seemed, describing a situation of Russians moving unimpeded & seizing the Ukranian landscape, wholesale, which bears no resemblance to the current situation. So, he suggested, the possibility that Putin might be being fed these narratives, by his handlers...
Anyone still need clues, to recognize the irony?

 

Oh I’m sure he’s sane. But he is scared of losing power. Not much more to it than that.

 

It reminds me of Russia under Stalin - and ironically, what the Trump administration was turning into.

 

What makes you so sure, when so many-- familiar with Putin, from watching him, for years-- are saying that he is acting much more erratically, & emotionally, instead of with cool calculation?

Also, did you see the video of Putin's advisors, afraid to meet his gaze? Their body language, speaks volumes.

 

I don’t I saw that one no. But it’s more of a hunch.

 

I saw the above video of Putin, in another thread (you can get large print subtitles, below the picture, instead of the small ones, over the image, of you want). It's short. What struck me-- and this was before I'd heard all this talk of Putin having "lost it"-- was that Putin was much less composed, than I have typically seen. He is not only more demonstrative, but seems less secure, and practically glistens with the sweat, of little bit of desperation.


http://www.politicalforum.com/index...is-within-reach.596793/page-6#post-1073244941

 

I don't get the OP because I don't find it bizarre that anyone in the highest risk group would want to lessen his risk to a virus or its variants.

Comparatively, Trump ignored all DHS and CDC mitigation efforts and his supporters are dying of COVID at 3x the rate of other demographics.

Of the two, Putin's behavior seems more responsible and reasonable. Sure, he might be paranoid but I wouldn't say his distancing himself in enclosed spaces with others is a sign of that, by itself.

 

I thought he seemed quite articulate under the circumstance. These summits are exhausting and his English is not great so everything has to be translated. He certainly seems sharper than Trump or Biden, though, in the sense that he able to get out his points quickly and fluently.

But I guess, there is a kind of a gravitas there. One country with a GDP roughly the same size is Australia vs the Western hemisphere.

 

But you can't gage any change in Putin, by comparing him to Biden or Trump. Not that I have a great familiarity with Putin's public performances, but he did strike me as both looking, and acting, not his "normal" self. In fact, someone in that thread, accused it of being a fake video and, though that turned out seemingly not to be true, I wasn't sure, at first, if it might actually have been a look- alike.

BTW, it is my understanding that, even though he likes to make his interlocutors use translators, Putin is absolutely fluent in English.

 

If I had poisoned people with novichok, I'd be paranoid too. He probably thinks everyone else is just like him, not blinking an eye when murdering for political gain. Honestly, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes. When his oligarch "friends" start losing billions due to the economic sanctions, they'll be gunning for his head. And I mean this literally.

 

Maybe. As a personal rule I don’t like guessing at the mental state of leaders. Makes it harder to guess their motives and moves. But it’s totally possible he’s scared which explains the demands he placed on Ukraine.

 

For starters, that one thing, on its own, was not the basis of all the talk, among those who have studied Putin for decades, that he is acting strangely. It is mostly his behavior & actions, as expressed through the way he has been running the country, including, most certainly, this current endeavor.

His isolation, due to Covid, is suggested more as a contributing cause of his altered thought. Combined with that (as related in my OP), is the intelligence telling us that Putin reduced his circle, to a very small one, composed of people, all with the same sort of conspiratorial, paranoid way of thinking, which (according to fmr. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul) is not connected to reality!-- imagine those last 4 words emphasized, with underlining (which, to explain to others, I did not edit that way, myself, because of MJ's extreme sensitivity to these text-enhancing tools). In the short article, linked in the OP, there is a quote about Putin's former, well-- informed perspective, having been 360°, whereas it is now, more like 60°.

Have we not plenty of examples of this phenomenon, of a person being confined with a small number of similarly- thinking others, being infected by that way of thinking? Besides the obvious, online conspiracy- spinner, whose group I've already mentioned, this is the classic dynamic, of a cult.

IMO, your own feelings about Covid are being overly- weighted, in their informing of your judgement, but I do not think that this is a point, it makes any sense, to argue. In our world, at the moment, it is just a fact of life, that one's feelings about particular, hot- button issues, have become a tangible part of society's neural net, tying closer, on many ideas, those with similar views, while simultaneously creating a wall of conceptual separation, between these, & any with a different, perceptual reticulum.

Which goes, exactly, to the point about Putin.

 

People are going to believe what they want to believe regardless of the presence or absence of any information.

Therefore, I don't place any **value** on what anyone says about Putin's affect. It's not reliable and it's not unbiased. If you look around, there are quite a few people that vehemently and often angrily refute anything and everything that shows Trump's penchant for being a liar, their, con man and @sshole.

It is a double-standard to lend credibility to the information that supports this position while simultaneously defending the exact same problematic behaviors in former POTUS Trump. I don't know if you're a Trump supporter or make allowances and apologies for him so this comment is not directed at you, specifically, but our fellow Americans collectively.

Again, there is nothing there that is shocking. I don't know much about him but, IIRC, he was a former KGB agent that came into power. It doesn't sound bizarre that he would tighten his inner circle especially because he is setting his sights on taking home the gold. It would reckless NOT to insulate himself with a few trusted people in formulating and executing movements to reach his desired goal.

I'm not extremely sensitive to rich text. It's hard to read so I don't read it. I don't want to do extra work to decipher a message that can't stand on it's own. Why would anybody do extra work they didn't have to do if doing that is annoying?

OK. He has a couple screws loose. And? Why is today's loose screw any more noteworthy than X number of years he's had a screw or two loose?

Yes. I still don't understand why that matters. What right do we, as Americans, to apply our overlay onto any and every other country?

In case you may have forgotten, we spent countless lies and billions of dollars over the course of 20 years and barely made a dent in the way of life for the Afghani people. I don't know who made us judge and jury over everybody else but, thus far, most of that have been exercises in futility.

So, here we are again, maligning a crazy person for being crazy even though he's been crazy for a long, long time. We can't expect him to not be crazy just like we can't expect Trump not to be outrageously stupid. And, since we have no control over the cognitive disconnects in Putin, Trump or anyone else, I'm not convinced that any of this hand-wringing, pearl clutching and angst is worth the effort.

I am unclear on what you're trying to convey here.

That has always been the case. We are just able to spot it faster because of the internet. It's human nature to gravitate toward those people that most align with our beliefs (or our pretense of beliefs).

OK. Duly noted.

 

Are you, here, taking a gangland turn? Because I think that might be a less common occurrence, that cold-blooded killers start thinking back on those they've wronged-- unless it is a case of one who has had a conversion, as of faith.

I suspect, though-- I can't say why-- that you were thinking in a more Shakespearean sense. That, I find, more appropriate for this narrative: the king's, dramatic descent, into madness. My own mind, actually, had gone to the conceit, in the setup of, The Taming of the Shrew, when I was considering the idea of Putin's conspiracy- minded cohort, which has reportedly calcified, around him. This idea, from the OP, I go over more thoroughly, in my prior post:

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/is-putin-sane.597327/#post-1073279075


To not stray too greatly from fact, however-- what is manifesting through Putin's territorial grasping, is not some new aberration, but an indignation, simmering within him, since he'd lost control of Ukraine in 2014, which has seemed now, finally, to come to a boil, and cannot be stopped from spilling over the pot's edges, escaping like the infected breath, of one in the grips of a coughing fit, whose mask has become too overly- worn, to any longer, serve its purpose.




How now, brown cow?!

 

Normally-- yours is a good rule to follow.

 

as much as i may dislike agreeing with you, the idea that he may be scared is one i can agree with. this is a man that is on a par with the president of the united states (he probably far exceeds our current potus). on one side he is faced with a belligerent nato, with missiles a stone's throw frim his doorstep. on the other side he faces china. on neither front can he afford to appear weak. he is also forced to deal with the remnants of the soviet empire's dictates. with enclaves of russians spread throughout the balkan states, he has a duty to defend his people. the ukraine is a perfect example of the difficulties he faces. russians were forced into the ukraine by their soviet leaders and have made a home there. a generation or two has passed and now those russians are persecuted by ukrainian leaders. what is a russian leader to do? defend them or allow them to languish and eventually perish? is a russian leader to allow the expansive nature of european nato forces to move further toward the heart of his nation or should he do what is necessary to keep foreign military powers from his doorstep?

 

My reply to this quote of yours, applies to pretty much your whole post: your opinion presents itself as what I can only recognize as the appearance of something, written by someone who did not read even the OP (never mind my other reply to you, or the overall thread). As I would normally expect that you would read the thing, at least, that you were answering, the best guess which logic, working with meager facts, can suggest, is that you still, or again, have a very bad headache, making it difficult for you to concentrate; therefore, it seems wiser that we try it over again, tomorrow, when I hope you will be feeling better.

Please do not-- and I am not implying that this is my expectation of you, only trying to account for the possibility-- bite my head off, for this answer. As I had implied, and had not been exaggerating, I had taken 4 more of your quotes, for which my reply, in all cases, would be essentially the same as for your 1st quote-- they seem more disconnected from my post, & the thread, than what is being said about Putin's tether to the outside world. Answering your post in that way, seems an even worse alternative, than my allowing that it is, for whatever reason, just not a very good time, for you.


Take it easy

 

I am responsible for what I write. You are responsible for what you read.

My position is that Putin has always been a US enemy. So, why is his "going off the deep end" noteworthy? Why is the question here "Is he sane?"? No, he's not sane. What else is there to say?

Please, with all due respect, stop projecting your stuff on me. Thanks for your cooperation in advance.

 

Trump calls Putin a Stable Genius

 

I too am starting to question h is mental state. Being in the bubble of extreme power and surrounded by self reinforcing inner circle .......... is not healthy.........and can result in very grandiose and unrealistic ideation.

Some of the things he has said in recent days...... don't make much senses ...(and might not be grounded in reality)......and it seems as if he feels entitled to do what he is doing for his own grandiose plans.


Something that is seldom mentioned is that Hitler was seriously bipolar. He had delusions that were anti Semitic..........and were the basis for his destructive actions. When in a "manic" state he could convince others of the most atrocious ideas.

This is why the psychological state of any leader should be watched....closely..........as their job is so high pressure to begin with.

Putin has sounded a bit paranoid for a while now.........

 

Pootin is a grownup... he and the XI's grownup leaders of the world have seen what we as Americans have reduced our country to childish and immature leadership... We have a president that craps his pants and is doing good to get out a coherent sentence.... The left and Democrats can poo poo the idea crime boss Joe is in cognitive decline that we got it under control if they want to..... but the grownups in America see it for what it is... and the world see it for what it is.... Pootin ain't playing games, only our own childish government is..... China WILL be next...

This meme speaks volumes....

 

and that tells you everything you need to know about both men.

 

So, you are saying that the state of mind, of the autocratic ruler, of the world's only other nuclear power that's roughly at parity w/ the U.S., with the ability to utterly destroy our world, several times over, on its own, is not "noteworthy?"

Well I am not currently in the mood, to try to figure out how to possibly explain my honest reaction to that, such that it would not break a forum rule. I can only wonder why, in that case, you would continue to linger, here (but, of course, that's your business).

If you cared to give a recommendation of mine, a try, though-- just a few posts back, there's one by MiaBleu that's not only excellent, but seems to answer you question, as if it were addressing it, directly.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/is-putin-sane.597327/#post-1073279280

 

But at least we have YOU, Popscott which, from the sound of your post, is a damn lucky thing, for us!