Quote:
|
All of this points to a serious problem. What if President Putin thinks that he is Gods right hand man to solve the worlds population problems?
|
As we say - the voice of the people is the voice of the God. Hence, in a way, as far as he retains his popularity he may feel like he has more or less a total mandate to do what he thinks is right for the country and it's people.
The whole orthodoxy angle is a blowback of sorts after the Soviet era - the collapse of Communism has left an ideological vacuum that had to be filled. That was done by the religion (surprise).
Not that I do not think that the Church needs improvement (after all nothing on earth is perfect and that tax evasion and customer rights abuses should be looked into), but at the same time I do not think that it should be demonised as the people who would go for a theocracy or monarchy. If anything they would rather not have monarchy, as under the Tsars Church was a state department run by the Tsar apointed person.
As to the journalists and activists - they have no real power (an overstatement, but still). Hence actions by them could not really dammage Putin's halo/popularity rating.
Now, lower level officials (ie local leadership in Chechnya) can be affected by those things, so they do have to worry.
As to pussy riot, that thing was overblown, while the important actions to discipline the Church were not covered. And if anything that covers under the perceived right not to be offended, something westerners dealing with SJW should know all too well.