Is Russia evolving to dictatorship ?

JihadJane said:
Not a few posters on this forum believe Hugo Chavez is a dictator so I won't take their judgement too seriously.
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Hmm. Have you seen this thread? Also your avatar indicates that you think Obama is a dictator. If he is a dictator, does that make Chavez and Putin super-ultra-dictators?
 
gtc said:
Hmm. Have you seen this thread?
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This thread I am posting on? Yes. There are some familair "faces".

Also your avatar indicates that you think Obama is a dictator.
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An interesting interpretation. Obama has been elected to the position of Commander-in-Chief of the biggest military/intelligence apparatus ever known so it's reasonable to expect that a lot of people will have to obey him. He inherits an office with frighteningly increased powers.

If he is a dictator, does that make Chavez and Putin super-ultra-dictators?
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Of the three countries Venezuela has the least corrupted electoral process so it would be a toss-up between the US and Russia, both of which are effectively one-party states. The US is historically the more expansionist and in increasingly dire straits so let's see what happens!
 
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geni said:
I doubt it. Putin probably plans on surviveing office and that means makeing sure there is a way to leave other than your death. There are other power players in Russia (or wannabe players). Putin has to remain genuinly popular to some degree in order to counter them.
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Who are these players and what jails will they be opposing Putin from?
 
Then why is Putin so popular in Russia? Russian people support Putin and his approval rating is 70%. So if it so bad why do so many people support Putin? Second lets talk about democracy. Is it democratic for UK to let Boris Berezovsky hide in the UK when Berezovsky is wanted for crimes in Brazil and Russia? What about Israel not sending Leonid Nevzlin to Russia? Leonid Nevzlin and the Yukos crew were gangsters so why can Leonid Nevzlin hide in Israel? Isn"t it dangerous that Israel is protecting criminals like Leonid Nevzlin, Vladimir Gusinsky or Michael Cherney? I find it hillarious how west talks about democracy. Putin didn"t have anything to do with what happend to Anna Politkovskaya. Ramzan Kadyrov probaly killed Anna Politkovskaya. Or maybe Boris Berezovsky killed both Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko? Besides Alexander Litvinenko was working for Boris Berezovsky and Boris Berezovsky isn"t a saint.
 
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moon1969 said:
Then why is Putin so popular in Russia?
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Thanks to high oil prices, Russia's economy did fairly well under Putin (though it remains to be seen how it will fare with oil price declines and the flight of capital from Russia driven by state interference). And Putin has played the nationalism card rather successfully: Russians want Russia to be strong and respected (or at least feared), and they think they can get that from a strongman better than from a democrat. State control over media helps out quite a bit too.

Second lets talk about democracy. Is it democratic for UK to let Boris Berezovsky hide in the UK when Berezovsky is wanted for crimes in Brazil and Russia?
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If the citizens of the UK are OK with it, then yes, it is. Perhaps you're having trouble understanding what the term means.

What about Israel not sending Leonid Nevzlin to Russia? Leonid Nevzlin and the Yukos crew were gangsters so why can Leonid Nevzlin hide in Israel? Isn"t it dangerous that Israel is protecting criminals like Leonid Nevzlin, Vladimir Gusinsky or Michael Cherney?
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"dangerous" and "undemocratic" don't mean the same thing. No surprise that an appologist for Putin would deliberately conflate the two, though.
 
Four words I'm surprised have not yet been mentioned in this thread: Alexander, Litvinenko, Andrei and Lugovoi.
 
"Putin should be made president for life. Strong rule is needed. Democracy is an American invention… Russians never obey their laws. Everyone stole, and only Khodorkovsky is in jail." —from an interview with Ramzan Kadyrov published in the October 2005 issue of the Russian GQ magazine
 
I guess what also would make Putin a dictator is the media. Putin is friends with an oligarch name Alisher Usmanov. Usmanov is a big supporter of Putin. Usmanov owns the newspaper Kommersant. Kommersant is like the Russian Financial Times a very big newspaper. Putin even rewarded oligarch Alisher Usmanov with Medal of Honour in 2004. Reason why Putin doesn"t like Vladimir Gusinsky is because Gusinsky supports free media. Boris Yeltsin also had problems with Vladimir Gusinsky. Putin droved Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky into exile and took the media these two oligarchs owned. So media is controlled by Putin and his supporters. That is why it would be possible for Putin to return to president.
 
It is still a fact that russian people are better with Vladimir Putin than they were with Boris Yeltsin. Russian people support Putin and not Garry Kasparov. In fact Garry Kasparov is not even popular in Russia.
 
Mikheil Saakashvili is no better that Putin or Medvedev.

"Georgia without Saakashvili is Georgia without Terror."
-Badri Patarkatsishvili-

So looks like many georgians say the samething about Mikheil Saakashvili.
 
moon1969 said:
Mikheil Saakashvili is no better that Putin or Medvedev.

"Georgia without Saakashvili is Georgia without Terror."
-Badri Patarkatsishvili-

So looks like many georgians say the samething about Mikheil Saakashvili.
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Saakashvili lost. When the only tool you have is cheap nationalism that is likely to weakenb your position somewhat.
 
moon1969 said:
It is still a fact that russian people are better with Vladimir Putin than they were with Boris Yeltsin...
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If you care to clarify a bit: please define your criteria for "better" and then if you would, explain how from your perspective, the Russian people are made "better" in both short (the next few months/years) and long (the next decade or two) terms under Putin's "guidance" as opposed to the guidance of others based on your criteria.

I’m not looking for anything concrete, just curious to hear your line of reasoning. If you can’t extrapolate that far, I understand.
 
Francesca R said:
Are you M.A.D.?
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Indeed. I am always amazed when I see people waxing nostalgic for the days when the USSR 'counterbalanced' US power. I mean seriously, a Cold War stand off that could easily have gone hot (even by accident - see the 1983 NATO Wargames that spooked the USSR... without the West even realizing how close things had come), and that is better than now?
 
moon1969 said:
"Putin should be made president for life. Strong rule is needed. Democracy is an American invention… Russians never obey their laws. Everyone stole, and only Khodorkovsky is in jail." —from an interview with Ramzan Kadyrov published in the October 2005 issue of the Russian GQ magazine
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Ya know, just change the names and this sounds like what the apologists for Stalin and before that for The Tsar said.
 
Giz said:
Indeed. I am always amazed when I see people waxing nostalgic for the days when the USSR 'counterbalanced' US power. I mean seriously, a Cold War stand off that could easily have gone hot (even by accident - see the 1983 NATO Wargames that spooked the USSR... without the West even realizing how close things had come), and that is better than now?
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Bear in mind the Cold War never did get hot. Ask yourself the question is the world a more stable place today then in the Cold War? Many of the places in the world today where violence, civil war and destitution are rampant is because of internal bidding for power and or poverty. In the old world order if the West didn't or wouldn't come to your aid then the East did. Forign aid helped maintain the balance of power in a pretty package for both sides. Today unless a country has something the US wants we couldn't care less about it.

The fall of the East has helped bring about the rise of powers that we're learning do not adhere to the America/Euro modality of reason. We've had soliders dying for 5 years at the hands of that other reasoning. We've had airliners flown into buildings by the hands of that other reasoning. So tell me when was the last time the Russians flew an airplane into an American skyscraper?
 
Crowlogic said:
So tell me when was the last time the Russians flew an airplane into an American skyscraper?
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"The Russians" don't need to fly aeroplanes into skyscrapers. They have missiles.

Like the US Americans, though, they do sometimes resort to murderous false flag psychological operations to start wars.
 
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