Never a dull moment with Putin

Pardalis said:
Would you really like to live in a country with no free speech, no free press, with only one political party and no possibility to change your government and their decisions?
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How about the government that turned the country from one of the poorest prior to the Cuban Revolution into the most economically viable Latin American country in the 70-80s in the face of US (and Western) embargo and lack of lucrative natural resources?
(Remember Cuba still managed an (average) annual growth rate of 7% in the 1981-83 period when the rest of Latin America was negative)

How about the government that managed to introduce free education (primary, secondary and higher), healthcare and social services across the country accessible to all citizens (rural or urban) despite being a poor country to begin with?
(Remember Cuba has the highest litaracy rate among third world countries, the highest living expectancy in the region (in the 1990s), and even more impressive that the infant mortality rate in Havana during the 1990s was half that of Washington DC)

How about the government that abolished discriminatory policies and allow equal access to education, healthcare and social services regardless of race, class and gender?
 
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Russia's Putin set to return as president in 2012

this is on bbc this morning....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-europe-15045816

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says he has accepted a proposal to stand for president in March 2012.

Addressing the ruling United Russia party's annual congress, Mr Putin and current President Dmitry Medvedev backed one another to switch roles.

The announcements end speculation over which man should run for the top job.

United Russia, which Mr Putin leads, dominates the country's politics and observers say his return to the Kremlin is now all but guaranteed.

He had already served two terms as president before Mr Medvedev took over in 2008. Mr Putin was barred by the constitution from running for a third consecutive term.

News of Mr Putin's candidacy, which had been widely expected, was greeted with dismay by the country's small liberal opposition.

Boris Nemtsov, a deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, likened Mr Putin to Alexander Lukashenko, the long-serving autocratic president of Belarus.
 
Mark6 said:
Which brings up a question -- why is there a political advantage? I don't think any US president in living memory could get any political mileage out of photographs of him half-naked with a rifle, flying a firefighting plane, or trying to bend a frying pan. For Obama any of that stuff would be beyond ridiculous despite the fact he actually is in good physical shape. But even a president who conceivably could do some of them (George W. is a licensed pilot after all, and could plausibly pose at the controls of a firefighting plane) would receive no PR benefit. Supporters support him already, detractros would jeer, and most fence-sitters would dismiss such photos as a publicity stunt. Yet such publicity stunts must work on Russians, or there would not be so many of them. Why?
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Every Thursday, a bearded, bespectacled man arrives at the Kremlin bearing a sheaf of data for Vladislav Y. Surkov, the government’s chief ideologist. There, a roomful of decision makers are gathered to hear the latest installment of What Russia Thinks.

As strange as it may sound to outsiders, the people who run Russia are obsessed with approval ratings.

Political competition has been all but extinguished since Vladimir V. Putin came to power, so elections serve as little more than a ritual display of loyalty. But Kremlin insiders see popularity as a key to the survival of a government that, 20 years after the Soviet collapse, has few stable state institutions other than its leaders’ personalities.

This accounts for a political life that sometimes looks like a never-ending campaign, in which leaders extinguish wildfires, upbraid billionaire industrialists, or, as was seen last week, scuba dive in the company of a camera crew. Polling data has become an essential part of governing.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/world/europe/17polling.html
 
Londinius said:
How about the government that turned the country from one of the poorest prior to the Cuban Revolution into the most economically viable Latin American country in the 70-80s in the face of US (and Western) embargo and lack of lucrative natural resources?
(Remember Cuba still managed an (average) annual growth rate of 7% in the 1981-83 period when the rest of Latin America was negative)
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And funny how that all came crashing down when their sugar daddy country collapsed.
 
bikerdruid said:
amadinijad??
no worse no better than half of the current crew in the middle eastand south asia.
i think they are all bigoted extremist asshloes.
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Agreed. But when you said "not so much" as Castro I thought you meant you didn't admire him as much as Castro, but still had some admiration for him.

Ahmadinejad seems to be a rock star to the code pink crowd. Galloway worships him. You said something like he was only interested in the sovereignty and well being of his people. But you don't admire him?

You say you admire Castro. You admire a man who attempted to convince the USSR to launch a full nuclear attack upon the US, thereby incinerating Cuba, slaughtering it's entire population in an agonizing hell. He claimed it was a sacrifice the Cuban people would be proud to make. Without, of course, asking them first.

This is an individual you admire?
 
trustbutverify said:
Agreed. But when you said "not so much" as Castro I thought you meant you didn't admire him as much as Castro, but still had some admiration for him.

Ahmadinejad seems to be a rock star to the code pink crowd. Galloway worships him. You said something like he was only interested in the sovereignty and well being of his people. But you don't admire him?

You say you admire Castro. You admire a man who attempted to convince the USSR to launch a full nuclear attack upon the US, thereby incinerating Cuba, slaughtering it's entire population in an agonizing hell. He claimed it was a sacrifice the Cuban people would be proud to make. Without, of course, asking them first.

This is an individual you admire?
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dude...that was 50 years ago.
it was a different world then.
 
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