Woolie: Um, how again does the US not kill people to instill fear? What's the death penalty? What was the point of taking over Afghanistan, or of Iraq? What was Vietnam (or, indeed, basically anything we did during the Cold War)? How about Hiroshima? Think about it- we're the one nation in the world to use an atom bomb on people- an entire city of them- needlessly and for the express purpose of instilling fear, and we are wholly unapologetic about it.
Cowing people into submission is a prevalent tactic among dominant parties- in fact, nearly the only one commonly used these days. Our entire law enforcement system, for one, is based on it. Underdogs operate by reason and ideology, rulers operate by fear. Hence the outrage against terrorism- who do these little pissants think they are, imagining they can lord it over us like our governments do?
Anyway, on Impurial's post, which is a quite good one- it's a tough question. I think the problem isn't that there's a conflict between the two ideas, at least at the moment, so much as that what is wrong is decided for the people. In the US as in Russia the government goes ahead pursuing its own interests and tells the people what to believe afterward. Such is probably inevitable given a strong power and a lot of information, not all of which is right on hand. In the end, it's governments and corporations that are inevitably stricken with megalomania, desiring to run the entire world- most people couldn't give two ****s about how the Chechens, Iraqis, or Afghans run themselves.
In the abstract, though, meddling is very rarely a good thing. If some foreign politics have a direct and significant effect on oneself, sure, go at 'em, but it's worth while to keep in mind that it's just about impossible to set up a government impervious to real civilian unrest. Orwell had about the closest one could come to a revolution-proof government, but arriving at that point would be near-impossible without someone catching on and fomenting revolt before it was ready. Just looking at the numbers, civvies outnumber soldiers in most governments 100 to one (at least), and any totalitarian state is going to be highly vulnerable to military defections as well, tipping the odds even more. When people tire of their government, they will dismantle it. The masses have an incredible tolerance for oppression, sadly, but life never becomes really truly unpleasant because of a government.
Anyway. Chechens. Assholes, the lot of 'em. I'm all for them. That theater stunt was particularly impressive, if not in the sense of "being politically effective". They're really making the elementary-school mistake of confusing the goals of "converting the Russian government" and "destroying the Russian government"- either one is doable, and indeed the second in particular is almost certainly within their capacity were they ever to get it together and organize sufficiently to blow up a few strategic locations with a few strategic potentates, and either one would achieve their desired goal, but trying to do both at the same time just ends up with political schizophrenia, and the sort of endless total war crap we see in Israel (oh, now we're at total warfare- oops! Now we want a peaceful solution- nah, let's blow 'em all to hell- wait! We can negotiate this! etc.)
I blame this pacifist bullcrap the liberals who sold out the demonstrators in America have spread all over the world. You can't remain nonviolent and stilleffectively fight anybody who doesn't give a **** about you and can control what the masses see and hear, but you can't do a revolution effectively with half of your side forming this Greek chorus shrieking at you and condemning the movement every time you try and fight- hence, you get tiny divided factions who can't really do anything useful engaging in what amount to senseless acts of violence, making even a fence-sitting government polarize against them, and a small army of ****heads who think that picketing somehow magically makes even organizations that hate your guts pause whatever they're doing. Or, more commonly, that not doing jack **** and whining about it whenever prompted is some kind of political action. Such is Iraq, say- if the people ever organized and dropped this demonstration idiocy, they'd boot out the occupation forces within weeks with, say, a few hundred casualties and a few hundred million in property damage. As it is, however, things are progressing so slowly and the messages are so mixed there'll likely be thousands of deaths and the complete and permanent destruction of the country before any conclusion is arrived at.
