Putin Erases Dissent

Radley Balko | June 3, 2008

And Russia gets a little scarier:

On a talk show last autumn, a prominent political analyst named Mikhail Delyagin offered some tart words about Vladimir Putin. When the program was televised, Delyagin was not.

His remarks were cut and he was digitally erased from the show, like a disgraced comrade airbrushed from an old Soviet photo. (The technicians may have worked a bit hastily; they left his disembodied legs in one shot.)

Delyagin, it turned out, has for some time resided on the so-called stop list, a roster of political opponents and other critics of the government who have been barred from television news and political talk shows by the Kremlin.

Comments

Gilbert Martin|6.3.08 @ 1:07PM|#

Stalin would be so proud.

|6.3.08 @ 1:07PM|#

Um...wow.

W|6.3.08 @ 1:10PM|#

I looked him in the eye and nearly shit my pants.

NeonCat|6.3.08 @ 1:10PM|#

Stalin would have had the person who failed to erase the legs… erased.

|6.3.08 @ 1:14PM|#

Remind me again of the difference between Russia 30 years ago and Russia now?

Jozef|6.3.08 @ 1:14PM|#

I'm wondering whether the eraser was the same person who airbrushed the muscles on Putin's torso.

|6.3.08 @ 1:18PM|#

Wow.

|6.3.08 @ 1:18PM|#

In Soviet Russia, [noun] [verb] you!

|6.3.08 @ 1:18PM|#

In Russia, TV program edits you!

|6.3.08 @ 1:19PM|#

I'm no ways tired...

|6.3.08 @ 1:20PM|#

I reckon when compared to the current Scott Mclellan book tour, this makes our U.S. of A. look pretty damn sporty and the crop of panderbationists running for office seem somewhat tolerable.

Episiarch|6.3.08 @ 1:20PM|#

We apologise for the fault in the erasing. Those responsible have been erased.

|6.3.08 @ 1:30PM|#

But you are sleepy, aren't ChrisO, very sleeeepppyyy... feel yourself drifting away... imagine you are a chicken, pecking away in the yard with your chicken friends, [bok, bok]... when I clap my hands you will awake and BE THAT CHICKEN! [clap]

|6.3.08 @ 1:31PM|#

Where is the erasure? I don't see it.

|6.3.08 @ 1:31PM|#

Imagine what talk shows here would be like if they couldn't make fun of or even disagree with W. There would be nothing on!

Episiarch|6.3.08 @ 1:32PM|#

Where is the erasure? I don't see it.

We apologise again for the fault in the erasing. Those responsible for erasing the people who have just been erased, have been erased.

ThinkPositive|6.3.08 @ 1:38PM|#

The media is managed elsewhere too. You might be able to make certain criticisms (and not others) of our leaders in the west and there is censorship of political incorrectness.

|6.3.08 @ 1:42PM|#

Serious question: is the content on the web censored as heavily as the t.v. example given?
Bloggers in particular.

Taktix&#174|6.3.08 @ 1:45PM|#

Imagine what talk shows here would be like if they couldn't make fun of or even disagree with W. There would be nothing on!

Yes imagine Red Eye... 24 Hours a Day...

|6.3.08 @ 1:53PM|#

there is censorship of political incorrectness.

Censorship -- at least in constitutional terms -- is what governments do, not private entities.

BakedPenguin|6.3.08 @ 2:03PM|#

Jamie - I think he was talking about Europe, not the US. e.g., the "Bardot" thread from earlier today.

Jozef|6.3.08 @ 2:11PM|#

Censorship -- at least in constitutional terms -- is what governments do, not private entities.

True. When private companies do it, it's called "editing for content".

|6.3.08 @ 2:23PM|#

Yes imagine Red Eye... 24 Hours a Day...

Touché

|6.3.08 @ 2:32PM|#

Putin is who George W Peron wants to be, when he grows up.

bernd|6.3.08 @ 4:15PM|#

Well, didn't the bloodless revolutions pay off big time?

I'm slowly getting to see the point behind "suffer not a witch to live"...

|6.4.08 @ 1:32AM|#

This is bullshit, I've seen Delyagin on TV twice in the last week. I wish they would ban him because for the last 15 years he's been talking the same shit about how we need to go back to a command economy and protect the poor just like in the Soviet Union.

He's exactly the kind of prick who would try to make out that he's being censored, while what's actually happening is that in a boom economy people laugh at his shit instead of treating him as a serious commentator as they did in Yeltsin's time.

benjamin|6.4.08 @ 10:32AM|#

Its important to remember that, in spite of his malfeasances, Putin is genuinely popular among the Russian people. I live in Israel, which has a large Russian expat population, and most of the ones I talk to love him. They see him as a self-sacrificing patriot who has dedicated his life to the good of the motherland. As much as it may pain those of us who believe in freedom to admit, some people want to be ruled, and find it difficult to live any other way.