Forbes has come out with its list of the 72 most powerful people in the world (one for every 100 million people on the planet, naturally), giving Vladimir Putin the top spot for the second year running. Apple CEO Tim Cook came in at #25, the only openly LGBT person on the list.
Forbes is quick to point out that they don’t actually like Putin, calling him “the omnipotent head of a feisty former superpower,” while they describe Obama (who ranks #2) as “the handcuffed head of the most dominant country in the world.”
And how has Putin been using his one-in-7.2-billion odds of being the most powerful collection of human cells currently constituting a pulse? Yeah, nothing good to report there.
He’s started a few wars, annexed an unwilling country, and provided the surface-to-air weapons that took down a commercial plane, killing 298 people.
How about we take this to the next level?
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And that’s just a taste of his foreign policy. We’re all aware of his attitude towards gay Russians — so called “anti-propaganda” laws make it illegal to publicly present a gay lifestyle in positive manner.
But his strong-arming tactics may go even farther. Just today it was reported that well-known Russian actor and outspoken Putin critic Alexei Devotchenko was discovered dead in his apartment in a pool of blood.
Devotchenko famously encouraged other performers to avoid “ultra-patriotic, propagandistic, chauvinistic, anti-Semitic, or pro-Stalinist feature films and television projects” and “agitprop documentaries,” and in a recent blog post slammed Putin’s regime for its “lies, its cover-ups, its legalised theft, its bribe-taking and its other triumphs.”
Most telling of the highly suspicious death is the creative reporting being circulated through pro-Kremlin news sources. One suggests that Devotchenko died after falling and hitting his head while drunk, and the other claims he was surrounded by whisky bottles and pills.
Many Russians are interpreting the death as a clear-as-day assassination:
@tsnowbird5000 Alexei Devotchenko knew his odds; standing for truth & right in Putin’s Russia is lethal – and yet he did it. R.I.P. hero.
— svarun (@svarun_01) November 5, 2014
Tallskin
Wot, no praise of the mass murdering little shit, Putin, by his number one fan, fagburn?
Come on fagburn, I’m sure you can find something nice to say about this horrible little man
Or maybe say something to the effect that NATO and the USA have organised this assassination. Your master Putin would like that
derek mcgillicuddy
I am not defending the murderous runt, but this comment doesn’t make sense to me. Explain it to me as if *I* am the lunatic, please.
Saint Law
It isn’t enough Putin had him murdered, his many little lick-spittles on the internet then try and kill his reputation.
Too stupid to realise the hearty contempt with which they, their master and his shitty regime are regarded by freedom lovers everywhere.
BustnMyNut
First and Foremost – This article is NOT accurate ~ He’s started a few wars, annexed an unwilling country, and provided the surface-to-air weapons that took down a commercial plane, killing 298 people.~ Let’s start here – WHAT WARS DID HE START? WHAT COUNTRY DID HE UNWILLINGLY ANNEX?? WHERE ARE THE FACTS THAT HE PROVIDED WEAPONS TO TAKE DOWN A COMMERCIAL AIRLINE? ~ Our phucked up media and brainwashing government has for years mis-informed us in regards to Russia. We(people who live in the USA)are fools to listen to all the propaganda pushed into our heads in regards to basically, the rest of the world. We were taught since childhood that the USSR/Russia was EVIL,Middle eastern people are terrorist,Qaddafi was EVIL, IRAN has nuclear weapons,Hugo Chavez was Evil, Assad is Evil and all these people mistreat their citizens etc. etc. THINK AGAIN PEOPLE! The USA is the EVIL trouble starting entity in this world.All for OIL and Greed and being governed by the elite/Illuminati. We have more people in prison than anywhere in the world, we kill millions of people around the world in pursuit of oil / gas & power again driven by the Illuminati. The ignorance that surrounds me is disgusting.
If the article is talking about Crimea, those people ABSOLUTELY wanted to be back with Russia, what wars Putin started …I don’t know ..but I am pretty sure he didn’t start them and it was all justifiable. The plane he shot down or was responsible for it…PLEASE, more than likely that was the plane that disappeared, out of no where (all the ignorant idiots of the world just accept that) with scientist on the plane that owned patents for some serious inventions…that Rothchilds wanted. The first people at the sight where that plane crashed said the bodies were NOT fresh and since when do peoples passports all gather in a circle together looking BRAND NEW. LASTLY because I could go on forever-PUTIN IS NOT ANTI GAY~ I AM SO SICK OF PEOPLE LYING ABOUT THIS CRAP!i have to go and pretend ignorance isn’t real
Daniel-Reader
I’m certain there are more powerful people than Putin. His bodyguards who stand next to him with weapons, the pilot who flies his plane, the air traffic controllers around the world that decide if his plane lands safely, the driver of his vehicle, the list goes on and on of people who are stronger than him that he needs to even be around. That is reality. No dictator who commits mass human rights violations can exist without a lot of other people deciding millions of times each day to let the dictator get away with it. That is the stark reality. Heck, that is what Stonewall was about – realizing people who experience human rights violations do not have to go alone with their own persecution. So he is not particularly powerful once people look at it realistically. I think it is only fair that the people he harms vote on his punishment since he always talks about how larger groups get to decide things and the number of people he has harmed is in the millions upon millions.
derek mcgillicuddy
@Daniel-Reader: The reality is he will never be punished. After all, don’t both Hitler and Mother Theresa share the same fate?: to rot in the Earth unrewarded and uncastigated.
Kangol
I wouldn’t put anything past Putin. Didn’t his government off an ex-spy living in London by putting an extremely rare, radioactive isotope in the man’s tea or coffee? And haven’t other critics of his government, including journalists, been gunned down in the streets?
Then again, in this country both W Bush and now Obama are spying on everyone, so it’s not like the US should be pointing any fingers at all, and as for wars, the US has been fighting one or more off and on since the 1950s!
Saint Law
@BustnMyNut: Your post reads like it was broadcast from an old radio full of hiss and crackle through which, nevertheless, can be heard the voice of a total lunatic.
1EqualityUSA
Bustnmynut & MarionPaige ought to be roommates.
Stevenw
@Saint Law: I love that comment so much, I am afraid I intend to plagiarise it rampantly.