The sketchyness of the cameras being down pretty much ensures it was at minimum orchestrated by people who can control or are at least are intimately aware of the Kremlin and surrounding area's security.
I don't know a lot about Russian politics so I can't speak to the significance of the specific figures but it does look at least a little suspicious.
On March 03 2015 11:06 QuantumTeleportation wrote: As much as Boris Nemtsov was part of Putin's opposition, we really can't be sure which group killed him.
Of course we can. EU/USA has more to gain by letting him be the leader of opposition, and there is no way anyone from islamic terrorist will go after him lol Only one with power left is Putin and has most to gain by both removing him from the picture and making other opposition members scared. Especially the part of making others scared. The right response to this would have been massive civil unrest, but that didn't happen. Now this means Putin can do whatever to the opposition and they now know it. You can now forget any change in Russia until Putin dies of old age or something. You got your own Gaddafi now.. congrats..
what makes you so certain that it is that simple? we are talking about a man who invaded and annexed a part of another sovereign european nation in 21st century, which to top it all of, was also a brother-nation to Russia and got in the whole mess by negotiating with an alliance that is supposed to ensure exactly what happened, doesnt happen. and he got away with it. in the process he rigged the "independence" vote by 90+ percent and he also regularly does the same in his own country. i literally cant see why a such man would even twitch about his local opposition. if anything, this hurts him, because it turned an inconvenience into a problem.
Because it is. This is how he shows power. He was KGB afterall. No better way to finally shut your opposition up then to kill off their "leader" and show he can do that whenever he can without anyone being able to doing anything about it.
The rest, I will not comment. It is not about my point.
I think there is a misconception here as to how important he was. Don't let the outcry over his death (or the media headlines declaring him a "key" leader) fool you; he was a minor opposition figure of little significance. He is important enough for most people to know who he was, but by no means was he a key figure. Also, it really wouldn't make sense to kill someone so blatantly anyhow; if he really were important enough, it would be much simpler to put him in prison for crimes that he did actually commit.
Also, due process. Guilt is decided with evidence, not in the court of public opinion.
On March 03 2015 08:27 BluzMan wrote: Everything is just sad, the society here is slowly collapsing upon itself and there isn't really a positive construct for a future. You just can't imagine a future for a 21'st century European country if you're an ex-KGB colonel, spent your whole life at a desk and openly admit you don't like/use the internet. You have to realize that Putin lives in a completely different world that just doesn't even have all those cool things you like and that constitute the modern Europe. You have Wikipedia and Coursera - he has old soviet history books. You seriously think about the availability of cybernetic augmentation in the following years, robotic space exploration, elimination of cancer and other amazing things that are just around the corner - he seriously thinks about "unfair" things that happened 50-100 years ago when no one at these forums was even alive. What kind of a future can that man envision? You can't imagine a complex system built of things you have no idea of.
There is certainly some truth to what you say, although the idea to looking to Europe (or the US for that matter) as a beacon of progress turned out to be less real than many would believe it to be (for what it's worth, maybe 5 years ago I would have more or less agreed with your overall message, but not now). The problems with the Western countries are just as deep-seated as those of Russia, and the quality of life is better because they did not have one of the worst economic collapses in history just 15 years ago.
Russia has and had resources, technical expertise and not to mention more space than any nation needs. There is no reason to complain about history, when there is hardly any nation having a better starting point for the future. And there is no reason to be happy about the current state of Russia, when there is so much potential left untapped.
No argument here, which is why I don't understand the reason for this post. Nothing I said contradicts your point.
On March 04 2015 02:12 Leporello wrote: You got a President for 15 years, he becomes the richest man in your country, he has no real political opponents, enjoys 80%+ approval ratings, and when one of his opponents does get killed in public, the public is content to let the President privately investigate it while they theorize that it was anyone and everyone responsible but the President? Do I have any of that wrong?
Anyone who wants democracy in Russia should be angry, scared, or be doing anything except making excuses for the state of things. I don't care if you think Putin is the second-coming of Christ, if you want your country to be able to democratically-elect his successor in any sort of fair process, you need to be less worried about what the "west" thinks (or what I think), and more concerned with the sorry-state of affairs that your country is actually in.
Oh wow, are you seriously conflating approval ratings with the size of the opposition? Perhaps that's where your "14% opposition" comes from.
They're not the same. Putin's party has about 55% control of the Russian government, which puts the opposition in the 40%'s. At this point the opposition is quite divided and offer very little in the way of a viable alternative for the future, a problem which many would argue also exists as of now in the US.
Putin's approval is in the 80%'s right now. That is, most people are happy with the job he has done in the recent past (which most people would confirm is the truth). It has been as low as 20%, and it is usually hovering around 50%.
On March 04 2015 02:12 Leporello wrote:It's so easy to be relative, because of course none of us are infallible. But, facts are: the "West" doesn't annex countries anymore (that's very 17th century), the "West" doesn't let its leaders privately investigate the assassinations of their political opponents. Some things aren't subjective, some shades of gray are a whole lot darker than others. What's going on in Russia right now is disturbing.
No foreign policy adventurism in the US? Really?
And you're right, let's investigate the killer in the court of public opinion instead of allowing the authorities to do that. That makes much more sense.
Like I said, it's easy to be relative. Annexation is not the same as, uh, "adventurism".
You can look at America's wars in the 21st/20th centuries and have a lot to disapprove of.
But last I looked, Vietnam, for example, is still its own country. I can find it on the map, and it doesn't say "America", it says "Vietnam". There is no excuse, in the world, to annex a country anymore. There just isn't. That game ended centuries ago. Maybe we overthrow governments (and maybe we shouldn't sometimes) -- but we do not forever deny a people their right to once again govern themselves.
Why you make this comparison, I don't know. If annexation of Crimea or Ukraine has some justification (although I can't imagine there ever being one), then say what it is. Justify it on its own merits. Comparing it to the... Iraq War, or something, is hardly comforting. At least the Iraqi people will always be Iraqi people (unless they, themselves, decide to dissolve the country into separate entities).
And as for your second point: Yes. It does make more sense. Having your leader privately investigate the murders of his political opponents is comic-book material.
On March 03 2015 11:06 QuantumTeleportation wrote: As much as Boris Nemtsov was part of Putin's opposition, we really can't be sure which group killed him.
Of course we can. EU/USA has more to gain by letting him be the leader of opposition, and there is no way anyone from islamic terrorist will go after him lol Only one with power left is Putin and has most to gain by both removing him from the picture and making other opposition members scared. Especially the part of making others scared. The right response to this would have been massive civil unrest, but that didn't happen. Now this means Putin can do whatever to the opposition and they now know it. You can now forget any change in Russia until Putin dies of old age or something. You got your own Gaddafi now.. congrats..
what makes you so certain that it is that simple? we are talking about a man who invaded and annexed a part of another sovereign european nation in 21st century, which to top it all of, was also a brother-nation to Russia and got in the whole mess by negotiating with an alliance that is supposed to ensure exactly what happened, doesnt happen. and he got away with it. in the process he rigged the "independence" vote by 90+ percent and he also regularly does the same in his own country. i literally cant see why a such man would even twitch about his local opposition. if anything, this hurts him, because it turned an inconvenience into a problem.
Because it is. This is how he shows power. He was KGB afterall. No better way to finally shut your opposition up then to kill off their "leader" and show he can do that whenever he can without anyone being able to doing anything about it.
The rest, I will not comment. It is not about my point.
I think there is a misconception here as to how important he was. Don't let the outcry over his death (or the media headlines declaring him a "key" leader) fool you; he was a minor opposition figure of little significance. He is important enough for most people to know who he was, but by no means was he a key figure. Also, it really wouldn't make sense to kill someone so blatantly anyhow; if he really were important enough, it would be much simpler to put him in prison for crimes that he did actually commit.
Also, due process. Guilt is decided with evidence, not in the court of public opinion.
On March 03 2015 08:27 BluzMan wrote: Everything is just sad, the society here is slowly collapsing upon itself and there isn't really a positive construct for a future. You just can't imagine a future for a 21'st century European country if you're an ex-KGB colonel, spent your whole life at a desk and openly admit you don't like/use the internet. You have to realize that Putin lives in a completely different world that just doesn't even have all those cool things you like and that constitute the modern Europe. You have Wikipedia and Coursera - he has old soviet history books. You seriously think about the availability of cybernetic augmentation in the following years, robotic space exploration, elimination of cancer and other amazing things that are just around the corner - he seriously thinks about "unfair" things that happened 50-100 years ago when no one at these forums was even alive. What kind of a future can that man envision? You can't imagine a complex system built of things you have no idea of.
There is certainly some truth to what you say, although the idea to looking to Europe (or the US for that matter) as a beacon of progress turned out to be less real than many would believe it to be (for what it's worth, maybe 5 years ago I would have more or less agreed with your overall message, but not now). The problems with the Western countries are just as deep-seated as those of Russia, and the quality of life is better because they did not have one of the worst economic collapses in history just 15 years ago.
Maybe you're right and I'm overly idealistic with Europe, but the thesis still stands - the worst problem about Putin is that he is completely unable to present the nation with any realistic model of the future (it's actually the same with opposition - they often have trouble projecting beyond "after the dragon is slain", not in detail at least). It's okay for many people who just want a piece of bread on their tables - when your most pressing concern is keeping your family fed, you don't think much of what happens years after. But for the people who broke out of that it's a quagmire - social lifts are not working and the whole state apparatus is directed towards infinite preservation of the ugly internal status quo, even through cataclysmic external events. Any kind of real social and economic development requires free speech (to spread knowledge) and free court (to protect it) at least, those are both obviously missing and will be, because Putin has no idea how to rule a free society or even what it looks like.
On March 03 2015 11:06 QuantumTeleportation wrote: As much as Boris Nemtsov was part of Putin's opposition, we really can't be sure which group killed him.
Of course we can. EU/USA has more to gain by letting him be the leader of opposition, and there is no way anyone from islamic terrorist will go after him lol Only one with power left is Putin and has most to gain by both removing him from the picture and making other opposition members scared. Especially the part of making others scared. The right response to this would have been massive civil unrest, but that didn't happen. Now this means Putin can do whatever to the opposition and they now know it. You can now forget any change in Russia until Putin dies of old age or something. You got your own Gaddafi now.. congrats..
what makes you so certain that it is that simple? we are talking about a man who invaded and annexed a part of another sovereign european nation in 21st century, which to top it all of, was also a brother-nation to Russia and got in the whole mess by negotiating with an alliance that is supposed to ensure exactly what happened, doesnt happen. and he got away with it. in the process he rigged the "independence" vote by 90+ percent and he also regularly does the same in his own country. i literally cant see why a such man would even twitch about his local opposition. if anything, this hurts him, because it turned an inconvenience into a problem.
Because it is. This is how he shows power. He was KGB afterall. No better way to finally shut your opposition up then to kill off their "leader" and show he can do that whenever he can without anyone being able to doing anything about it.
The rest, I will not comment. It is not about my point.
I think there is a misconception here as to how important he was. Don't let the outcry over his death (or the media headlines declaring him a "key" leader) fool you; he was a minor opposition figure of little significance. He is important enough for most people to know who he was, but by no means was he a key figure. Also, it really wouldn't make sense to kill someone so blatantly anyhow; if he really were important enough, it would be much simpler to put him in prison for crimes that he did actually commit.
Also, due process. Guilt is decided with evidence, not in the court of public opinion.
On March 03 2015 08:27 BluzMan wrote: Everything is just sad, the society here is slowly collapsing upon itself and there isn't really a positive construct for a future. You just can't imagine a future for a 21'st century European country if you're an ex-KGB colonel, spent your whole life at a desk and openly admit you don't like/use the internet. You have to realize that Putin lives in a completely different world that just doesn't even have all those cool things you like and that constitute the modern Europe. You have Wikipedia and Coursera - he has old soviet history books. You seriously think about the availability of cybernetic augmentation in the following years, robotic space exploration, elimination of cancer and other amazing things that are just around the corner - he seriously thinks about "unfair" things that happened 50-100 years ago when no one at these forums was even alive. What kind of a future can that man envision? You can't imagine a complex system built of things you have no idea of.
There is certainly some truth to what you say, although the idea to looking to Europe (or the US for that matter) as a beacon of progress turned out to be less real than many would believe it to be (for what it's worth, maybe 5 years ago I would have more or less agreed with your overall message, but not now). The problems with the Western countries are just as deep-seated as those of Russia, and the quality of life is better because they did not have one of the worst economic collapses in history just 15 years ago.
Maybe you're right and I'm overly idealistic with Europe, but the thesis still stands - the worst problem about Putin is that he is completely unable to present the nation with any realistic model of the future (it's actually the same with opposition - they often have trouble projecting beyond "after the dragon is slain", not in detail at least). It's okay for many people who just want a piece of bread on their tables - when your most pressing concern is keeping your family fed, you don't think much of what happens years after. But for the people who broke out of that it's a quagmire - social lifts are not working and the whole state apparatus is directed towards infinite preservation of the ugly internal status quo, even through cataclysmic external events. Any kind of real social and economic development requires free speech (to spread knowledge) and free court (to protect it) at least, those are both obviously missing and will be, because Putin has no idea how to rule a free society or even what it looks like.
You can't expect democracy from ex-communists and ex-communist agents. I see it in Bulgaria as well.
Edit: One of the flaws of Eastern European nations is the lack of will to ban and prosecute communists for their criminal acts. On the other hand, Germany is doing really good job to reduce any nazi effect. A clean system is needed and nothing less. Otherwise, you get quasi-democracy from these people.
On March 04 2015 07:23 darkness wrote: One of the flaws of Eastern European nations is the lack of will to ban and prosecute communists for their criminal acts. On the other hand, Germany is really doing great job to do the same against nazis. A clean system is needed and nothing less. Otherwise, you get quasi-democracy from these people.
Yes, let's ban political ideologies and prosecute anyone who believes otherwise to promote our desired political system. See anything wrong with this idea?
Though I can sympathize with the problem you have (though I would dispute the causes), you must realize how ridiculous this solution is. Then again, I might be wrong since in some countries this actually happens.
On March 04 2015 07:23 darkness wrote: One of the flaws of Eastern European nations is the lack of will to ban and prosecute communists for their criminal acts. On the other hand, Germany is really doing great job to do the same against nazis. A clean system is needed and nothing less. Otherwise, you get quasi-democracy from these people.
Yes, let's ban political ideologies and prosecute anyone who believes otherwise to promote our desired political system. See anything wrong with this idea?
Though I can sympathize with the problem you have (though I would dispute the causes), you must realize how ridiculous this solution is. Then again, I might be wrong since in some countries this actually happens.
While it's not that simple anyway, darkness doesn't have to talk about communists as believers in an ideology but communists as previously high-ranking members of the communist party. Estonia and Poland are especially famous for breaking with our communist past by shunning people with communist party or KGB pasts, bringing in fresh faces (our PM just got reelected, he is 35...). We are also considered to have the most successful transitions since 91 (arguments can be made for Slovenia and the Czech Republic, though).
Yet, the picture becomes more complicated if you look closer. For example, the security service in Estonia drafted many ex-KGB officers with technical knowledge. Long story short, that's how we got the traitors Herman Simm, Vladimir Veitman and others. Also, our longest-serving PM, Andrus Ansip, was active in the communist party (not terribly high, but that clearly making a career there) and is now a EU commissioner on the digital market. His transformation has been quite remarkable, considering that he is quite famous for his pro-NATO and anti-Russia sentiment - positions which won him all those elections.
On March 04 2015 07:23 darkness wrote: One of the flaws of Eastern European nations is the lack of will to ban and prosecute communists for their criminal acts. On the other hand, Germany is really doing great job to do the same against nazis. A clean system is needed and nothing less. Otherwise, you get quasi-democracy from these people.
Yes, let's ban political ideologies and prosecute anyone who believes otherwise to promote our desired political system. See anything wrong with this idea?
Though I can sympathize with the problem you have (though I would dispute the causes), you must realize how ridiculous this solution is. Then again, I might be wrong since in some countries this actually happens.
Fascism and communism are not reasonable ideologies, you cannot allow them to grow as they're against everything democracy stands for. Speaking of communism which I know better, I think it's like a mini Holocaust. Why? Because whoever opposes regime, they simply go to jail and very likely die a few days later for "mysterious" reasons. Anyway, I'm not going into too much details, the main idea is true communists rarely transition to democracy or if they do, their interpretation is... well, like Putin's. Of course, you may not understand some of this if your country never had to go through this.
On March 04 2015 07:23 darkness wrote: One of the flaws of Eastern European nations is the lack of will to ban and prosecute communists for their criminal acts. On the other hand, Germany is really doing great job to do the same against nazis. A clean system is needed and nothing less. Otherwise, you get quasi-democracy from these people.
Yes, let's ban political ideologies and prosecute anyone who believes otherwise to promote our desired political system. See anything wrong with this idea?
Though I can sympathize with the problem you have (though I would dispute the causes), you must realize how ridiculous this solution is. Then again, I might be wrong since in some countries this actually happens.
Fascism and communism are not reasonable ideologies, you cannot allow them to grow as they're against everything democracy stands for. Speaking of communism which I know better, I think it's like a mini Holocaust. Why? Because whoever opposes regime, they simply go to jail and very likely die a few days later for "mysterious" reasons. Anyway, I'm not going into too much details, the main idea is true communists rarely transition to democracy or if they do, their interpretation is... well, like Putin's. Of course, you may not understand some of this if your country never had to go through this.
i mean this is just false. Trying to justify the idea that communism is a mini Holocaust is just totally misunderstanding communism
On March 04 2015 07:23 darkness wrote: One of the flaws of Eastern European nations is the lack of will to ban and prosecute communists for their criminal acts. On the other hand, Germany is really doing great job to do the same against nazis. A clean system is needed and nothing less. Otherwise, you get quasi-democracy from these people.
Yes, let's ban political ideologies and prosecute anyone who believes otherwise to promote our desired political system. See anything wrong with this idea?
Though I can sympathize with the problem you have (though I would dispute the causes), you must realize how ridiculous this solution is. Then again, I might be wrong since in some countries this actually happens.
Fascism and communism are not reasonable ideologies, you cannot allow them to grow as they're against everything democracy stands for. Speaking of communism which I know better, I think it's like a mini Holocaust. Why? Because whoever opposes regime, they simply go to jail and very likely die a few days later for "mysterious" reasons. Anyway, I'm not going into too much details, the main idea is true communists rarely transition to democracy or if they do, their interpretation is... well, like Putin's. Of course, you may not understand some of this if your country never had to go through this.
i mean this is just false. Trying to justify the idea that communism is a mini Holocaust is just totally misunderstanding communism
You're very welcome to go to North Korea and report your experience.
I do know of many people in the region who (in my mind fruitlessly) debate whether Communist crimes compare to the holocaust. I personally think that this is a pointless debate that will in the end needlessly devalue to the lessons of the holocaust and not succeed in its purported aims to avoid similar totalitarian crimes in the future.
To see the style of debate, see this Council of Europe resolution. While the fact that the Soviet Union committed human rights violations is beyond debate, it becomes destructive when people and countries start to compare Soviet crimes to the Holocaust. The case of Holodomor (hello Ukraine) comes up again and again, but there is no consensus on this among countries, and not even among academics.
I'd say it's much more instructive to look at these issues case by case, and so we should return to the case of Nemtsov.
On March 03 2015 11:06 QuantumTeleportation wrote: As much as Boris Nemtsov was part of Putin's opposition, we really can't be sure which group killed him.
Of course we can. EU/USA has more to gain by letting him be the leader of opposition, and there is no way anyone from islamic terrorist will go after him lol Only one with power left is Putin and has most to gain by both removing him from the picture and making other opposition members scared. Especially the part of making others scared. The right response to this would have been massive civil unrest, but that didn't happen. Now this means Putin can do whatever to the opposition and they now know it. You can now forget any change in Russia until Putin dies of old age or something. You got your own Gaddafi now.. congrats..
what makes you so certain that it is that simple? we are talking about a man who invaded and annexed a part of another sovereign european nation in 21st century, which to top it all of, was also a brother-nation to Russia and got in the whole mess by negotiating with an alliance that is supposed to ensure exactly what happened, doesnt happen. and he got away with it. in the process he rigged the "independence" vote by 90+ percent and he also regularly does the same in his own country. i literally cant see why a such man would even twitch about his local opposition. if anything, this hurts him, because it turned an inconvenience into a problem.
Because it is. This is how he shows power. He was KGB afterall. No better way to finally shut your opposition up then to kill off their "leader" and show he can do that whenever he can without anyone being able to doing anything about it.
The rest, I will not comment. It is not about my point.
I think there is a misconception here as to how important he was. Don't let the outcry over his death (or the media headlines declaring him a "key" leader) fool you; he was a minor opposition figure of little significance. He is important enough for most people to know who he was, but by no means was he a key figure. Also, it really wouldn't make sense to kill someone so blatantly anyhow; if he really were important enough, it would be much simpler to put him in prison for crimes that he did actually commit.
Also, due process. Guilt is decided with evidence, not in the court of public opinion.
On March 03 2015 08:27 BluzMan wrote: Everything is just sad, the society here is slowly collapsing upon itself and there isn't really a positive construct for a future. You just can't imagine a future for a 21'st century European country if you're an ex-KGB colonel, spent your whole life at a desk and openly admit you don't like/use the internet. You have to realize that Putin lives in a completely different world that just doesn't even have all those cool things you like and that constitute the modern Europe. You have Wikipedia and Coursera - he has old soviet history books. You seriously think about the availability of cybernetic augmentation in the following years, robotic space exploration, elimination of cancer and other amazing things that are just around the corner - he seriously thinks about "unfair" things that happened 50-100 years ago when no one at these forums was even alive. What kind of a future can that man envision? You can't imagine a complex system built of things you have no idea of.
There is certainly some truth to what you say, although the idea to looking to Europe (or the US for that matter) as a beacon of progress turned out to be less real than many would believe it to be (for what it's worth, maybe 5 years ago I would have more or less agreed with your overall message, but not now). The problems with the Western countries are just as deep-seated as those of Russia, and the quality of life is better because they did not have one of the worst economic collapses in history just 15 years ago.
Russia has and had resources, technical expertise and not to mention more space than any nation needs. There is no reason to complain about history, when there is hardly any nation having a better starting point for the future. And there is no reason to be happy about the current state of Russia, when there is so much potential left untapped.
No argument here, which is why I don't understand the reason for this post. Nothing I said contradicts your point.
On March 04 2015 02:12 Leporello wrote: You got a President for 15 years, he becomes the richest man in your country, he has no real political opponents, enjoys 80%+ approval ratings, and when one of his opponents does get killed in public, the public is content to let the President privately investigate it while they theorize that it was anyone and everyone responsible but the President? Do I have any of that wrong?
Anyone who wants democracy in Russia should be angry, scared, or be doing anything except making excuses for the state of things. I don't care if you think Putin is the second-coming of Christ, if you want your country to be able to democratically-elect his successor in any sort of fair process, you need to be less worried about what the "west" thinks (or what I think), and more concerned with the sorry-state of affairs that your country is actually in.
Oh wow, are you seriously conflating approval ratings with the size of the opposition? Perhaps that's where your "14% opposition" comes from.
They're not the same. Putin's party has about 55% control of the Russian government, which puts the opposition in the 40%'s. At this point the opposition is quite divided and offer very little in the way of a viable alternative for the future, a problem which many would argue also exists as of now in the US.
Putin's approval is in the 80%'s right now. That is, most people are happy with the job he has done in the recent past (which most people would confirm is the truth). It has been as low as 20%, and it is usually hovering around 50%.
On March 04 2015 02:12 Leporello wrote:It's so easy to be relative, because of course none of us are infallible. But, facts are: the "West" doesn't annex countries anymore (that's very 17th century), the "West" doesn't let its leaders privately investigate the assassinations of their political opponents. Some things aren't subjective, some shades of gray are a whole lot darker than others. What's going on in Russia right now is disturbing.
No foreign policy adventurism in the US? Really?
And you're right, let's investigate the killer in the court of public opinion instead of allowing the authorities to do that. That makes much more sense.
Like I said, it's easy to be relative. Annexation is not the same as, uh, "adventurism".
You can look at America's wars in the 21st/20th centuries and have a lot to disapprove of.
But last I looked, Vietnam, for example, is still its own country. I can find it on the map, and it doesn't say "America", it says "Vietnam". There is no excuse, in the world, to annex a country anymore. There just isn't. That game ended centuries ago. Maybe we overthrow governments (and maybe we shouldn't sometimes) -- but we do not forever deny a people their right to once again govern themselves.
Why you make this comparison, I don't know. If annexation of Crimea or Ukraine has some justification (although I can't imagine there ever being one), then say what it is. Justify it on its own merits. Comparing it to the... Iraq War, or something, is hardly comforting. At least the Iraqi people will always be Iraqi people (unless they, themselves, decide to dissolve the country into separate entities).
And as for your second point: Yes. It does make more sense. Having your leader privately investigate the murders of his political opponents is comic-book material.
I'm not pro Putin but the idea that annexation for the sake of annexation was a 17th Century thing is simply not historically true. The 17th Century is the century from 1600 to 1699, a century of wars of religion in Europe before the height of the colonial era. You'd have to go to the 19th Century, the rise of the nation state and the post Napoleonic exportation of conflict outside of Europe to get to the height of annexation, a geopolitical era which continued until the emergence of the bipolar world in 1945. The United States annexed most of its land mass in the 19th Century and continued into the early 20th, the colony of Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom in the 19th Century, Africa was colonised in the 19th Century, Korea was taken by Japan in the early 20th Century, in 1918 the maps of Europe were redrawn by men who thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply rearrange parcels of land and population into states with no regard for their population, in the 1930s maps were redrawn again both by Germany, with the assent of the great powers, in Africa, in the Middle East and in the Far East. This only really ends in 1945 because of the unique conditions following the Second World War.
I don't defend annexation but it is certainly not a 17th Century practice, it is far more recent than that and was a geopolitically dominant practice into living memory.
On March 04 2015 07:23 darkness wrote: One of the flaws of Eastern European nations is the lack of will to ban and prosecute communists for their criminal acts. On the other hand, Germany is really doing great job to do the same against nazis. A clean system is needed and nothing less. Otherwise, you get quasi-democracy from these people.
Yes, let's ban political ideologies and prosecute anyone who believes otherwise to promote our desired political system. See anything wrong with this idea?
Though I can sympathize with the problem you have (though I would dispute the causes), you must realize how ridiculous this solution is. Then again, I might be wrong since in some countries this actually happens.
Fascism and communism are not reasonable ideologies, you cannot allow them to grow as they're against everything democracy stands for. Speaking of communism which I know better, I think it's like a mini Holocaust. Why? Because whoever opposes regime, they simply go to jail and very likely die a few days later for "mysterious" reasons. Anyway, I'm not going into too much details, the main idea is true communists rarely transition to democracy or if they do, their interpretation is... well, like Putin's. Of course, you may not understand some of this if your country never had to go through this.
i mean this is just false. Trying to justify the idea that communism is a mini Holocaust is just totally misunderstanding communism
You're very welcome to go to North Korea and report your experience.
For anyone who is curious what they are actually saying: the video gives pretty generic "betrayed our country to the US" motivation and denounces Nemtsov's opposition to Novorossiya.
According to the internet, such a group does exist - some militia or other that really doesn't matter.
http://lifenews.ru/news/150688 - this article (not the most reliable but still a news source) says it's just a Ukranian-made parody of Novorossiyan news. Judging by the quality of that video, that seems reasonable.
For anyone who is curious what they are actually saying: the video gives pretty generic "betrayed our country to the US" motivation and denounces Nemtsov's opposition to Novorossiya.
According to the internet, such a group does exist - some militia or other that really doesn't matter.
http://lifenews.ru/news/150688 - this article (not the most reliable but still a news source) says it's just a Ukranian-made parody of Novorossiyan news. Judging by the quality of that video, that seems reasonable.
Yeah, I'd back up LegalLord here. Besides the group leader denying the authenticity (why release a video masking the faces and voice if they want to take credit?!), a speed-adjustment shows that the speaker is quite young:
On March 02 2015 11:22 Slaughter wrote: Why is a strong Russia bad for the West? A strong Russia is good except when they decide to annex parts of other countries because the mood struck them.
You should read Brzezinski: USA has to keep Europe or else they are dead. Therefore they need a weak Russia so Europe doesn't ditch USA for Russia. Moreover, Ukraine is what he call a geopolitical "pivot" that should be pro American.
why do people always assume that russia is an alternative to the usa for europe? compared to europe russia is a piss poor borderline 3rd world country with a highly inefficent administration, a weak market, sub par capital and no relevant scientific advancement on a wider scale. there is literally nothing russia has to offer. if anything, its the other way around. russia should seek out closer relations with europe so they can benefit from europes superior technology, markets, administrations and capital.
No, no you got it all wrong. Dmitry Rogozin (Russia vice Prime Minster) posted this gem on his twitter account. Sadly it's in Russian, but in short it's = what Russia annexed prospered, when Russians left all went to shit (and they give examples like Balts having factories and then when they got independence they just catch fish). This is quite extreme propaganda-nationalism video, most extreme i saw in quite some time.
EDIT: That video of some random group admitting they got Niemcow just looks... random.