Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Unknown Target on December 06, 2011, 10:04:39 am
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http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/n2fos/civil_war_is_about_to_ducking_start_in_moscow/
Any Russian-speaking/Russian citizens in the area want to comment? :)
On the media blackout note, it seems not?
http://rt.com/news/rally-moscow-election-police-173/
More news:
Moscow police clash with anti-Putin demonstrators
Massive protests in Russia, evidence of stolen election, media blackout
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_RUSSIA_ELECTION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-12-06-09-18-58
Russia shaken by anti-Putin rally
http://www.france24.com/en/20111206-russia-shaken-anti-putin-rally
Russia's Putin faces new protest
Putin promises changes...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/us-russia-election-idUSTRE7B019B20111206
Troops Pour Into Moscow
Thousands demonstrate against government after Russian elections (Video)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/russian-army-troops-move-into-moscow-after-election-protests-video/2011/12/06/gIQAexPBZO_blog.html
Putin's party barely hangs onto its majority
http://news.yahoo.com/putins-party-barely-hangs-onto-majority-092734694.html
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Arab Spring.
Russian Winter.
Somehow appropriate.
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Business as usual. The difference that I can see is that Putin's party lost a sizable fraction of the vote. Probably hinting that the Russians are getting fed up with the current politics, but there's no guarantee to what would happen if the United Russia party loses the majority.
The national media here mentioned that this might be a good time to start following carefully what's going on in Russia at the moment. Too bad our ministers have somewhat alienated themselves from the Russian political system.
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Arab Spring.
Russian Winter.
Somehow appropriate.
Something Summer.
Western Fall?
I'd like to know what's going on with Russia as well since I don't hear much of it anymore.
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Business as usual. The difference that I can see is that Putin's party lost a sizable fraction of the vote. Probably hinting that the Russians are getting fed up with the current politics, but there's no guarantee to what would happen if the United Russia party loses the majority.
The national media here mentioned that this might be a good time to start following carefully what's going on in Russia at the moment. Too bad our ministers have somewhat alienated themselves from the Russian political system.
How are large scale protests in Russia business as usual? It's my understanding that, while the country tries to look democratic, the United Russia party is actually rather repressive - I say that while giving a more than casual glance at the numerous journalists and reporters who were disappeared over the last few years for revealing corruption in Putin's administration. The country is really repressed, large demonstrations like this are not common at all.
Also, Spyhe, the media already "coined" the "American Autumn" (ugh). Siamese Summer? :D
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Because Russia has, and always had, massive internal political tensions. It's a very large country that never had modicum of ethnic homogeneity and has historically used violence to repress its citizens. You can't go five feet without tripping over a historical grievance against the government or another ethnicity, and the improvements the new government is making are not fast enough to match the rate at which pressure builds.
The country is best compared to a violent schizophrenic who's gone off his meds. Eventually the amount in the bloodstream is going to fall below therapeutic levels and they'll go bonkers.
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yay! another revolution in russia! looks like the cold war is back on!
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*starts singing RAH-RAH-RASPUTIN*
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Video evidence of voting fraud:
http://observers.france24.com/content/20111206-russia-election-fraud-caught-video-ballot-stuffing-erasable-ink-putin-protests
Also, NGTM-1R, while it may be business as usual for Russia to repress its citizens, it's not business as usual to have large scale demonstrations. Rebellions and whatnot happen rarely, and while they're more common than in, say, the USA or England, they're certainly not the de facto state of affairs.
I think referring to this as a "normal" occurring marginalizes the people's grievances and understates the significance of them showing up in force to protest.
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I don't think the protests are that uncommon in Russia, the difference is that the media is nowadays more eager to report them and that protesters think that this actually might have an effect. If anything, the Russian protests have actually become less violent, a thing I contribute to increase in wealth and to the fact that this time people have something to lose as well. I think that they formerly dubbed protests as popular uprisings and shot the protesters, so that's progress for you.
I'm aware of how United Russia is seen from the West as a repressive party. I see it less repressive than its predecessors, and I don't believe that any of the other parties would be more democratic compared to what they have now. But if anyone thinks Russia could be westernized in a couple of decades, they are wrong. I have my doubts about EU policies towards Russia, EC has been complaining and condemning human rights violations for quite a while, but since the economy is on a downward spiral in Europe, I don't hear such vocal comments anymore. That tends to portray EC in a rather gruesome light as well.
The thing of which I don't have a clear opinion is whether Putin has actual power or not. Hmmm, I need to talk about this with my Russian colleagues at work.
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Also, NGTM-1R, while it may be business as usual for Russia to repress its citizens, it's not business as usual to have large scale demonstrations. Rebellions and whatnot happen rarely, and while they're more common than in, say, the USA or England, they're certainly not the de facto state of affairs.
Oh, I'm not saying it's normal to have protests in Russia at all; I'm saying that it's been a lit fuze since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia has no familiarity with methods of reducing civil tension that don't involve the use or threat of military force, an option that is simply no longer possible for use in European Russia if they want anyone to take them seriously. This will be where the learn, hopefully.
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Meanwhile, at RussiaToday...
"Terrorist-sympathizing chechen-lovers attack great, white mother russia with assistance of NATO Jews under disguise of "protest""
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Arab Spring.
Russian Winter.
Somehow appropriate.
Something Summer.
Western Fall?
I'd like to know what's going on with Russia as well since I don't hear much of it anymore.
Indian Summer?
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Meanwhile, at RussiaToday...
"Terrorist-sympathizing chechen-lovers attack great, white mother russia with assistance of NATO Jews under disguise of "protest""
Hilary Clinton gives "signal" to protesters, according to Putin.
http://news.yahoo.com/putin-accuses-clinton-encouraging-protesters-093312730.html
I wonder how many believe him? When in doubt, blame the US?
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I'd wonder more how many don't care if it's true or not, and just want to blame something.
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It can get rather amusing watching the 'bogeyman' get blamed for everything. Thing is, Putin neatly sidesteps several questions that answer raises, such as 'Why are there tens of thousands of your citizens angry enough to defy the government in the first place?', and 'Why was corruption in the Government an issue before the elections, what is it about the allegations of vote-fixing that makes you conclude, so rapidly, that someone else must be behind it?'
Thing is, Russia's voting record in the recent Arab Spring uprisings has not made them many friends in the Arab community, if they respond, after that, to these demonstrations in too heavy-handed a way, it stands a chance of making them look very bad on the political stage across most of Europe, and probably pretty large sections of the Middle East as well.
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Russia looked good on the public stage before this? I thought everyone knew Putin was a power-hungry ultra-nationalist dictator.
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It can get rather amusing watching the 'bogeyman' get blamed for everything. Thing is, Putin neatly sidesteps several questions that answer raises, such as 'Why are there tens of thousands of your citizens angry enough to defy the government in the first place?', and 'Why was corruption in the Government an issue before the elections, what is it about the allegations of vote-fixing that makes you conclude, so rapidly, that someone else must be behind it?'
Thing is, Russia's voting record in the recent Arab Spring uprisings has not made them many friends in the Arab community, if they respond, after that, to these demonstrations in too heavy-handed a way, it stands a chance of making them look very bad on the political stage across most of Europe, and probably pretty large sections of the Middle East as well.
Why would Russia care about that?
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For the same reason China cares about it's reputation with regards to Human Rights and gets annoyed when it is attacked. There's two words why China won't get involved with all this stuff, Tiennaman Square, Russia probably has more than a few skeletons in its cupboard of the same type, and doesn't want to broadcast a reminder of that to the world.
Anyone who thinks Russia just 'doesn't care' about stuff like that has obviously not been paying attention to world politics. Russia is just as dependent on good trade and political relationships as every other country in the world.
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For the same reason China cares about it's reputation with regards to Human Rights and gets annoyed when it is attacked. There's two words why China won't get involved with all this stuff, Tiennaman Square, Russia probably has more than a few skeletons in its cupboard of the same type, and doesn't want to broadcast a reminder of that to the world.
Anyone who thinks Russia just 'doesn't care' about stuff like that has obviously not been paying attention to world politics. Russia is just as dependent on good trade and political relationships as every other country in the world.
I think that in this case you are mistaken. If you follow news from there, you'll start to notice that the Western companies investing in Russia have got their assets nationalized, leaders killed, or faced other unpredictable problems like tolls instated by local police officers and mafia. Since this happens still today, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they really don't care. Human life has value there, but the value is rather cheap, though it depends on the place where you live.
Western human rights values simply do not hold in China or in Russia. The question can be reversed though, do you actually see any embargoes towards China or Russia due to their human rights abuses? There aren't, so West isn't really interested in improving those things there. Whatever protest you hear from EU or USA, it is simply empty words and China and Russia know that.
I will warn about one thing: if EU commission protests too loudly towards Russia, it will be specifically cold winter in Central Europe. Or some other problems with trading is likely to occur - like suddenly jumping prices.
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More news:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2011/12/2011121053755418485.html
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Western human rights values simply do not hold in China or in Russia.
And yet both countries show considerable concern about their image; witness their suppression of independent and even state journalism.
Your commentary is a rather poor examination of the market forces at work. It's not simply governments that can suffer in these circumstances. You and I think ourselves informed on these subjects, but the truth is we're not really informed except by comparison to Joe Q. Citizen. If we should get a complete and truthful eyeful of what goes on, then there would be serious repercussions for companies that do business with China and Russia. If such a thing were to get out to Joe Q. Citizen, things could become exceptionally ugly.
They must guard against not only those at their door, but those who support the people at their door, and the people who support those who support the people at their door. Not all threats to a system are immediate or high-level.
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Russia Today seems to be getting even more fringe-worthy, now they're interviewing Alex Jones?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HYETraMg_mM
He's got some interesting information (elsewhere, I didn't watch this yet), but I mean...it's Alex Jones. He's like the last guy before you reach the tinfoil hat crowd.
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The only difference between that and what has already been done is that the aircraft was remotely piloted.
Helicopters have been doing the same thing for years. Nearly a decade IIRC.
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Yea for real. With all the hubbub I was expecting them to launch a missile strike.
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can haz nuklear war nao?
and im appalled at this thread's lack of a soviet russia joke!
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Very well. In Soviet Russia, government protests YOU (http://www.npr.org/2011/12/15/143791880/after-protests-russias-putin-takes-to-the-airwaves)!
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After having discussed the Russian development with two Russians, it seems that at least the protests are not very large in the scale of Russia. Moscow has five or six football clubs, and the number of people in one of them causes the same sort of crowd. Also, even the Russian opinion is rather divided on this, some of them don't want any change to Putin and Medvedev, some of them do. The reasons for not wanting the change is the unpredictability - with Putin you at least know what you stand for and what to expect. Some Russians suspect that the United Russia party is still the best choice to vote, rest of them are even worse. Nobody wants Jeltsin or Gorbatsov back. Russian voting percent is usually around 40 - 50 % due to passivity caused by people being unsure or seeing that this wont change anything.
However, the future of Putin is at suspect. Some of the Russians suspect that Putin has to go, but whether this opinion is supported by the majority remains to be seen.
As I said earlier, the only reason Russia and China are interested in showing having human rights is the trade with West. This is done by simply suppressing the other view; if West was really interested in human rights in these countries it would start to enforce this by making trade harder for those who offend the human rights. Unfortunately, the world works the other way around nowadays, it is Russians and Chinese that are pulling the strings and West that has to jump according to their wishes. Remember that it is those countries that are now pushing for their values towards West since we have to trade with them as well. Whether I like this development or not is another thing.