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KTG17 wrote: You are saying if Trump had he freedom to do as he chose? I guess we can speculate.
its a good thing the US public is strong enough to ensure presidents don't have that power.
I guess that also says something about Russia.
Russia and the US have very different systems. The US is a democracy. A very flawed one, but a democracy nonetheless. Russia on the other hand is a police state. It may be democratic on the surface, but underneath that surface every single thing is controlled by the secret services. Good luck trying to oppose the government when at least two of your neighbours are spies for the secret service and reporting your every move so that the authorities can find something to throw you in jail. That is a big difference between the US and Russia. In the US you can bluntly oppose the government. But in Russia, if you oppose the government without working with the secret services, that gets you in jail or a nice little spot on the local graveyard. What is the difference between the constitution of the US and the constitution of Russia? Both of them guarantee freedom of speech. The difference is that the US constitution also guarantees freedom after the speech... Government, opposition, activists, press. The secret services want to control everything. And if they don't control you they will get rid of you. You can't blame it on the people if there is nothing the people can do about it. So yes, Putin is a slave to the system. Everyone in Russia is, and this has always been so.
djones520 wrote: Saw a story today about how Russia has outlawed the only real candidate against Putin from running. How... quaint.
Navalny, yes. Funny thing though is that it wasn't even necessary. That shows just how much the secret services feel the need to control everything. The one candidate they do not control gets banned, even though he is so unpopular he never stood a chance against Putin either way. All of the other people are in the secret services' pockets so they could replace Putin without anything significant really changing. Not that they will replace Putin. Putin is still massively popular with the people. Although if the only remaining independent polling center of Russia is an indication, it does seem his popularity is past the high point.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/30 14:53:15
KTG17 wrote: You are saying if Trump had he freedom to do as he chose? I guess we can speculate.
its a good thing the US public is strong enough to ensure presidents don't have that power.
I guess that also says something about Russia.
The aspects that describe a weak person apply 100% to Trump whether or not he is a dictator. He is already incapable of taking criticism, he attempts to censor the media (labelling those he dislikes fake news and not letting them into press conferences etc.), he is certainly not open about his failures (still awaiting those tax returns).
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
KTG17 wrote: You are saying if Trump had he freedom to do as he chose? I guess we can speculate.
its a good thing the US public is strong enough to ensure presidents don't have that power.
I guess that also says something about Russia.
Russia and the US have very different systems. The US is a democracy. A very flawed one, but a democracy nonetheless. Russia on the other hand is a police state. It may be democratic on the surface, but underneath that surface every single thing is controlled by the secret services. Good luck trying to oppose the government when at least two of your neighbours are spies for the secret service and reporting your every move so that the authorities can find something to throw you in jail. That is a big difference between the US and Russia. In the US you can bluntly oppose the government. But in Russia, if you oppose the government without working with the secret services, that gets you in jail or a nice little spot on the local graveyard. What is the difference between the constitution of the US and the constitution of Russia? Both of them guarantee freedom of speech. The difference is that the US constitution also guarantees freedom after the speech...
Government, opposition, activists, press. The secret services want to control everything. And if they don't control you they will get rid of you. You can't blame it on the people if there is nothing the people can do about it.
So yes, Putin is a slave to the system. Everyone in Russia is, and this has always been so.
This might be a bit unpopular in these boards, but since I started traveling regularly to Russia in the fallout of the Yeltsin years people were tired of obscure oligarchs running the show and shameless corruption.
Russia now is a Putinarchy which is awful by most developed world standards but still an improvement over the 90s to early 00's
I have no doubt that when the younger generation who weren't traumatised over those years will demand more participation, but it has to come from within as external interference will be met with stubborn resistance.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: To be fair, the way the West treated Russia after the USSRs collapse is partially to blame.
With the collaboration of Russia's own government who just played along and folded to all the West demands because they were too busy dismantling the whole state apparatus to share among their oligarch buddies.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: To be fair, the way the West treated Russia after the USSRs collapse is partially to blame.
With the collaboration of Russia's own government who just played along and folded to all the West demands because they were too busy dismantling the whole state apparatus to share among their oligarch buddies.
The oligarchs were the state. The Yeltsin government was not a democratic government (they were the government that shelled the white house and the democratic government in it with tanks). Just because the corrupt Yeltsin clique was happy to sell the country out to the West does not relieve the West of its guilt. That is like saying the West is not guilty of the slave trade because African warlords cooperated with Western slave traders. The 1990's was the perfect opportunity for the West to help the Russian people build up a stable, democratic state. Instead of helping however, the West only made things worse. The West should have opposed Yeltsin and press for democratic reforms, while guiding Russia on transitioning to a capitalist economy. Instead, it just made deals with the oligarch mafia. Which as we all know resulted in the siloviki stepping in and breaking the oligarchs, resulting in the police-state Russia we all know and love today. Then the West did a whole lot more of stupid stuff and now Russia hates the West more than the Soviet Union did... Congratulations. Considering how much the Soviets hated the West, that is quite an achievement.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/04 01:00:45
Russia has had a really tragic history, and the 20th-21st centuries have been very clear examples of that so far. The First World War was disastrous for Russia, the Russian revolution deepened the wounds even further, and then the USSR oppressed its people on an unprecedented scale. Partly because it could, 20th century technology made oppression possible that was previously unimaginable.
The Second World War also hit Russia hard, yes they won, but the price was terribly high. Once again the world was shown what can be accomplished with numerical superiority, and what it looks like when you really make use of that advantage.
The Cold War wasn't very fun for the West either, with the threat of nuclear war never far away, but the Russians had both that and the disaster that was Soviet society and economics.
And when the USSR finally crumbled, what did they get? The oligarchs, and what Iron_Captain describes above. I can see why the Russians like Putin, because Putin's Russia isn't bad in the same way as Yeltsin's Russia. I can see it, but I don't have to like it. I think Russia deserves better than Putin. After all these years of tsars, serfdom, war, dictatorship, more war, oligarchs, chaos and repression, they could use a break.
Iron_Captain wrote: The West should have opposed Yeltsin and press for democratic reforms, while guiding Russia on transitioning to a capitalist economy. Instead, it just made deals with the oligarch mafia. Which as we all know resulted in the siloviki stepping in and breaking the oligarchs, resulting in the police-state Russia we all know and love today.
So....because the West didn't force itself on Russia (like after WW1) and make it mimic Western models of government, its partially their fault it turned out the way it did? Since when was it the job of the West to 'guide Russia'? Why can't its own people do that? Nobody had to 'guide' Britain, France, America, or any of that lot to being a capitalist economy; we all just kind of groped our way towards it collectively. Some took longer than others, but it's not the West's job to do it for Russia, any more than it is Latin America's. Russia has spent a lot of time and money making sure they had enough nukes that nobody would meddle domestically. The fact that the Russian people defaulted to yet another totalitarian regime isn't the fault of their neighbours.
I suspect the truth is that the Russian cultural psyche is simply very partial to overblown xenophobia and strongman authoritarianism. Putin is just the latest in a very, very long line. If the West somehow pressured Putin out of office tomorrow, there'd be another one hanging up his coat in the lobby five minutes later. The Germans and Japanese had similar inclinations once upon a time; but it got beaten out of them so thoroughly, and their countries subsequently micromanaged to such a degree for a period of time that it hasn't come come back. Without that sort of direct action, the Russian people will simply have to grope their way to democracy and capitalism like the rest of the world had to. If indeed, they want to. Which I suspect they don't.
If they carry on the way they are now though; Russia will end up in the same position it was in under the Romanovs. Little liked, backward, and rich in nothing but pride. It's already two thirds of the way there. Jacking up your military spending North Korea style to try and pretend you're bigger than you are doesn't fool anyone; not when the Netherlands and Belgium combined could match it if they really felt like it. Christ, Britain or France alone could spend double what Russia does if they had a mind to. They just prioritise things like healthcare and pensions instead.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/02/04 01:56:33
Without that sort of direct action, the Russian people will simply have to grope their way to democracy and capitalism like the rest of the world had to.
But in the Soviet Russia, capitalism and democracy seize power, make dictatorship and steal all peope's property.
I'm not sure if you're trying to make a joke, it's a failure of translation, or if you're serious...
You started going on about how The Essence of The Russian disposes them to xenophobia. It's exactly the part I quoted. That's a bunch of nonsense.
If you're conflating what I'm saying with concepts of race, you don't quite grasp what's under discussion well enough to be dubbing anything 'nonsense'. Seriously guv, in the several times I've discussed things with you before, you've always had a really bad habit of jumping to project what you /think the other party is saying without stopping to reread and check if it actually is. And you're doing it again here.
I'm making no comments about 'race'. I'm talking about culture; the more ephemeral social constructs which are regularly shared (and just as often not) between people of different ethnicities across a specific geographic region. In this case, Russia. The concept of the historical dialectic is really quite peripheral to what I'm talking about. To put it in a metaphor, you're looking at the equation 'A+B=C' and arguing about the theory behind the formula whilst I'm discussing what makes up 'A'.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2018/02/04 14:24:49
Craftworld Sciatháin 4180 pts 
Mordant 92nd 'Acid Dogs'
The Lost and Damned
Inquisition
