View Full Version : Legitimacy of an illegitimate regime
Onkel Neal
03-06-12, 08:01 PM
The coverage of a managed election, of the kind that took place in Russia on Sunday, is necessarily different. The candidates' views are irrelevant; the public's views are of marginal interest. The question of who won and who lost is also uninteresting, since everyone, even those who are paid to pretend otherwise, know the outcome has been predetermined.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2012/03/despite_claims_of_fraud_vladimir_putin_s_president ial_election_victory_is_still_a_big_win_.html
Simply pathetic.
Tribesman
03-06-12, 08:20 PM
Simply pathetic.
You could at least pretend to be surprised.:03:
Look on the bright side, he is only claiming to have won a rigged election and is locking up anyone who says otherwise.
It isn't like he is claiming to have discovered priceless antiques as he was performing brain surgery while fighting off a yeti using only one hand with the noble art of dimac...thats all going to happen in next weeks installment of "real breaking news of Superputins adventures in the Motherland".
the_tyrant
03-06-12, 08:28 PM
Ahh, who cares
he has the power you know, legitimacy is good, but power is what really matters
Ahh, who cares
he has the power you know, legitimacy is good, but power is what really matters
Illegitimate power is called tyranny.
Stealhead
03-06-12, 11:20 PM
Illegitimate power is called tyranny.
:yeah:
I've been (obviously) following some of the opposition blogosphere, and what my relatives in Russia have been up to. One interesting observation that several have made - since yesterday, Russian online queries for "immigration to Canada", "immigration to US", "immigration to Australia" and other Western countries have increased to about twice the level they are normally at. Hardly a surprise - there are a lot of disappointed people there right now, and many people who frankly feel threatened. Reminds me of exactly why I'm not there with them... :hmmm:
My grandmother in St. Petersburg volunteered to be a poll observer on behalf of an opposition party, and was actually turned away because they had more people volunteering than they knew what to do with. If nothing else, that's certainly a positive sign - it's safe to say that over the last few months, Russians have 'cared' and have certainly been more incensed over the situation than they have been in almost 20 years. While powerless to do much about it right now, the fact that there is such vocal discontent is encouraging. There is, finally, an awakening of civic consciousness in Russia - something that's been more or less asleep since the early 90s. They'll keep doing what they can. Marches and rallies are scheduled throughout the week, and I think the turnouts will be pretty serious indeed.
Stealhead
03-07-12, 01:02 AM
Putin was popular for some time he did many things that a lot of Russians liked(or perhaps a few years back fewer Russians where willing to express their feelings:hmmm:) now though it seems many tire of his ways it has become more obvious that he is more or less a tyrant.It is always a little fishy when most every major party in a nation "endorses" the same guy that would be like the GOP and Dems here is the US backing the same candidate.
Skybird
03-07-12, 05:27 AM
Illegitimate power is called tyranny.
Kill all kinds of lobbyists then. They claim illegitimate powers for themselves, by bypassing voter's will.
Kill all democratic politicians, too. I know not a single name here in Euroope who dares to say that lobbyism should be completely abandoned.
Kill all parliaments and Western governments, too. They already have externalised most of the legislation and law-creating details to private business, private lawyers, and lobby groups that then have more or less card blanch to tailor the laws to their likings. In Germany, an esitmated three quarters of laws get tailored and detailed, defioned and worded by non-governmental contractors who almost always have lobby links. I bet money it is not much different in America. Seeing the political dynasties and the clans of multi-millionairs diominating the poltiical landscape, I would say it is even worse.
You can vote, yes. But you cannot chose. It'S always the system's own creations set up for election. I wonder why? :)
Putin is no democrat. But he has brought back stability and calculability - and from a QWetsern perspective thes emust be our prioritities. Russia is threatened by immense inner ethnic tensions, and already must fight real hard to more or less maintain a reliable monitoring system and control of its nuclear weapons and nuclear technology system.
Russia falling into civil war or getting ripped apart by Wetsern predators like under Yeltzin - that is a nightmare scenario.
And as a matter of fact, most Russians became better off not under Yeltzin who sold out his country and did not even realise it, but in the years under Putin. A contrast between cities and rural areas remains, however.
Realpolitik. It'S the only way to deal with Russia. It is not Asia. It is not Europe or the West. It is Russia. It mjst not copy anyone in the West, even more so when the Wetsern system are as corrupted and rotten as any other, claimed inferior country in the world. By mneaning and idea, our countries were meant to be nice. But the reality today is they get eaten up by corruption and - business lobbyism.
That'S why I can live with Putin. Sympathy with the man or Russian politics has nothing to do with it. It simply is Western self-interest on my side.
BTW, Putin indeed is a tyrant, in the ancient Greek understanding of the term. Originally, a tyrant had not the negative connotation we add to the word today, it simply meant the reigning by one man alone - for better or worse.
the_tyrant
03-07-12, 08:06 AM
Illegitimate power is called tyranny.
its not like he cares, and its not like the opinion of the internet effects his power. Frankly, as an ex KGB man, Putin is probably laughing right now
Jimbuna
03-07-12, 08:32 AM
Illegitimate power is called tyranny.
Another massive decline in what was already a low credibility rating but I doubt he cares...he has achieved what he set out to do.
Penguin
03-07-12, 08:37 AM
its not like he cares, and its not like the opinion of the internet effects his power. Frankly, as an ex KGB man, Putin is probably laughing right now
So what's the point of your postings?
Obviously you don't care for other people's freedom and you show an alarming sympathy for authoritian leadership.
If you are not interested in reading opinions in the web about Putin, don't read and don't post in this thread.
Will we change something in the little discussion on here? Probably not, but this is not the point of a discussion or an exchange of information. Personally I found CCIP's posting very informative, as he writes from a semi-insider's perspective.
However the web is not the real world; there are some very real people in the very real Russia against Putin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb7fc5uJPJs
Kill all kinds of lobbyists then....
Kill all parliaments and Western governments, too....
I'm not killing anyone. How do you get that from what I said? Illegitimate power is tyranny. Simple. Whether you personally can live with a tyrant (in any sense of the word) or not is immaterial.
Tyranny needs acceptance to establish itself. When good people like yourself accept tyrants you encourage them to become more tyrannical.
Catfish
03-07-12, 10:38 AM
I'd say Russia is appx. in the state of a gold rush, pretty much like the US was at the end of the 19th century, maybe until 1920. It will be THE economic power of the next decades.
In Russia there is no real foundation or buffer between head of the state and common man, this storey has to be slowly "colonized" or filled up by a real middle class. At the same time now in Russia the secret service is not able to control the people anymore, it just happens to be still one of the biggest employers. But it sure is Putin's last election, wait a few years and things will sort out.
On the other hand, if the US goes on with spending one trillion dollars for the F-35 alone, just to boast about "who has the longest .." providing an outer threat that keps people like Putin afloat, it may well be things develop differently. From overwhelming debts to the perception of the rest of the world :hmmm:
Penguin
03-07-12, 11:31 AM
The problem I have with Sky's utopia, is that whatever form of system you have: when it's for and from the people (a key factor for me), folks will always form interest groups.
As much as we need a reboot, a fresh start, maybe a refreshing of the tree of liberty, as long as there are two people out there with the same interests, they will form alliances - call it lobbies, initiatives or parties. It's always the question how much influence you want to give to them - no question that our current system, which grants the most influence to the entities with the most bucks, is sick and corrupt.
AVGWarhawk
03-07-12, 11:35 AM
I hear he voted himself in as sexiest man alive. :DL
However the web is not the real world; there are some very real people in the very real Russia against Putin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb7fc5uJPJs
Oh absolutely. I'm following this just the same, I was just sort of hoping that people were already aware of these rallies and their suppression. Frankly they're better-publicized in the west than they are in Russia - not surprisingly, given the amount of state control over media there. There has been some scary stuff happening out there, both at rallies and otehrwise. A lot of arrests over the last few days.
Hottentot
03-07-12, 12:09 PM
Oh absolutely. I'm following this just the same, I was just sort of hoping that people were already aware of these rallies and their suppression.
At least our media covers them fairly well, even moment by moment. The way they described the latest rallies in St. Petersburg, it went something like this:
Opposition: "Hi, we'd like to demonstrate peacefully."
Police: "Well we won't give you a permission."
Opposition: "OK, uh, we're going to demonstrate anyway because it's, like, our right and stuff."
Police: "Sure, go ahead. We love illegal demonstrations."
Some people here have said along the lines: "Millions of people and a few thousand people demonstrate, so what?", but a long time reporter with lots of experience from Russia commented that if there is going to be a change, it's going to be either in Moscow or in Saint Petersburg. If I recall correctly, he even compared it to the 1917 indirectly and said that "a few thousand" people are enough if the time is right. He didn't believe in the chance for a democratic change. I don't know, sounded little romantic to me, except maybe for the first part. What do you think, CCIP?
Complete offtopic: sometimes the local way of reporting news from Russia makes me laugh. Around last Christmas I remember a reporter in radio giving the listeners vital information about the demonstrations back then: "There are lots of people here. From the atmosphere it would seem they are displeased with prime minister Putin."
Even more offtopic: every time I think I speak Russian, I'm humbled when I try to listen to the news. Do they have a competition of who speaks the fastest (that link wasn't even nearly the worst I've heard), or what's with the machinegun tempo that doesn't seem to come up anywhere else?
This is why George Washington was such a great man. He had the same personal power that Putin does but unlike Vlad he voluntarily gave it up and thereby set our country on the path to government by the people.
Ducimus
03-07-12, 01:33 PM
This is why George Washington was such a great man. He had the same personal power that Putin does but unlike Vlad he voluntarily gave it up and thereby set our country on the path to government by the people.
Is it still? I find myself skeptical.
Is it still? I find myself skeptical.
Well things do change over time of course but FWIW unlike Putin, George Bush wasn't allowed to elect himself to a third term and I firmly believe that even if Obama wins in November he'll still be out of office by Feb of 2017 at the latest, (the two term standard being another gift from George Washington). That's pretty much proof enough for me that while our system may not be perfect it is at least functional enough to have prevented a dictator from coming to power these last 200 some odd years.
America has her problems, and they've been getting worse lately. Ultimately of course the Russian situation is far, far worse - at the end of the day, even the most staunch anti-American will have to grudgingly admit that if nothing else, there is still more than just lip service being paid to the Constitution, and the system of checks and balances hasn't completely broken down. Sometimes it works in fits and starts, sometimes it's bizzare and unfair, but all in all there is still a sort of democracy in America, and that's no small achievement in the end. Gotta stay positive somehow!
Some people here have said along the lines: "Millions of people and a few thousand people demonstrate, so what?", but a long time reporter with lots of experience from Russia commented that if there is going to be a change, it's going to be either in Moscow or in Saint Petersburg. If I recall correctly, he even compared it to the 1917 indirectly and said that "a few thousand" people are enough if the time is right. He didn't believe in the chance for a democratic change. I don't know, sounded little romantic to me, except maybe for the first part. What do you think, CCIP?
This is tricky. It is definitely true that a few thousand in the right place can change things - and did change things even in recent history. Sadly I think it will take a different time and different political climate for people to finally make sense of what happened in Moscow in October 1993 for example, where the whole current situation in Russia really takes its root. It's definitely not like 1917 - if anything, it's more like 1905. The socioeconomics in Russia still mean that a vast majority of people live quite desperately and want to believe in the "good Tzar", hoping that some protests and petitions might make things better (and instead getting fired on and suppressed - just as they were in 1905). It's still a long road to any kind of historical breaking point.
The biggest problem is that the opposition, for all their good intentions and promises, is fragmented, lacks a strong unified agenda, and most importantly lacks any convincing, credible leadership. Russian liberal democracy died in the early-mid 90s - those parties and leaders may be active in the opposition, but their credibility has been destroyed very effectively and systematically (though a few were destroyed physically, too). Then there are nationalist organizations, many of them genuinely scary, but are also dealt with by the current regime very effectively. The fact is that with its money, political clout and control over media, the regime can very effectively keep the opposition fragmented and lacking credibility, removing dangerous leaders when they get too dangerous.
One of the problems is that everyone looks at Putin as some kind of source of power, but an open secret is that Putin doesn't really matter. Putin as a person has all the ambition and vision of a small-time bureaucrat. Putin, however, is a brand that is managed effectively by a board of directors that is United Russia - the main stockholders of political capital in Russia. They are far from actually united, and represent several different, even conflicting streams of power in Russia, but are united by one thing in common: they all benefit from the status quo. So, as long as nothing else threatens the status quo, they get along and market their Putin brand to the people with great effectiveness. When one of them gets out of line, they are publically humiliated and then quietly purged from the corridors of power, then nothing changes. It's going to be that way until something big happens in the socioeconomic situation of the average Russian, until the status quo becomes too unbearable for them.
In some sense, the opposition really did not have any chances in these recent rounds of elections. But the popular outcry is way, way more meaningful than anything they could achieve at the ballots. I don't think it's something that United Russia is really prepared to deal with in the long run. But the outcry doesn't have a legitimate, credible political outlet either, so the best hope right now is that the current regime will see the danger and deal with it by compromise rather than repression. Not totally optimistic over that. Otherwise, it's a long and hard road for the opposition ahead - when the protests are over, they'll still have a lot of soul-searching to do. The fact is that liberal democracy is still dead in Russia, and it will take more than a popular outcry against Putin to bring it back from the dead. If that doesn't happen, then you have the Orange Revolution to learn from - it was a genuine popular movement in the Ukraine that was channeled into incompetent, corrupt political outlets and ultimately failed. The same thing could happen in Russia, and Russians know that all too well.
Skybird
03-07-12, 04:00 PM
A system that once was well-meant, nevertheless can be corrupted or perverted until it is not run by a tyrant but mutates into a tyrant itself. Ideological dogmas can help in that, or are the result of that, or both. Like a river deepens its bed by following it on and on, this system more and more makes sure that it cannot leave that bed anymore, or that any other water will escape it's main route. In a similiar fashion, systems in the West have installed perosnell networks and lobbies betwene plltical groups and business groups that are mutually supportive, that way more and more it become sunlikely that a person from outsiode such networks can climnb in the hierarchy and come to influence and power. The system then has began to breed its own next generation that will make sure that it does not and cannot chnage.
Thinking patterns that are hard toi chnage also play a role here.
Many nations in the West were meant to be free, and democratic. But I still claim that liberty is falling, and that there is no democratic state in the West any more - only the carricature of that . There is a widening gap between how our states were meant to be in the past, and how they have turned out top be in the present. People defending them as being free and democratic in the meaning of the old "dogma", imo got stuck with their heads in the past, which makes them unable to look at the present and realise how far it has separated from the old ways and ideals.
For German readers, here
http://www.cicero.de/weltbuehne/europas-zersetzungsprozess-weichen-sind-auf-postdemokratie-gestellt/48233 (http://www.cicero.de/weltbuehne/europas-zersetzungsprozess-weichen-sind-auf-postdemokratie-gestellt/48233)
is a little essay that could have been written by me, about the post-democratic era we already are in. I could also point out that we are challenged by circumstances today that probably even cannot be solved by democratic processes anymore, even more if these are still following the thinking of the old era. The old assunmptions aboput how demiocracies should be set up and should function inmnmodern time, simpyl are already ridiculed by globalised business, and financiaol markets whose activity rotate around the world 24 a day, following the sun and ignoring national borders indicating sovereignity and validity-zones of national laws.
There are many local and global implications and consequences from this.
Also, I do no longer believe that democracy can endlessly competently be realised in communities beyond a relatively little size - just a few hundred or thousand, not more. Global societies are beyond that scale by many factors. As I see it, modern democracies have paradoxically resulted in establishing neo-feudal structures and aristocracies again. We just do not call them that any more.
August,
I did not mean to imply you literally meant "killing". I just wrote it that way because your post ,metioned tyranny you spoke about in a context that surely was meant as something negative, worth to get rid of or to get past beyond. I wanted to make the point of my message clear in a rush.
Ducimus
03-07-12, 05:23 PM
Well things do change over time of course but FWIW unlike Putin, George Bush wasn't allowed to elect himself to a third term and I firmly believe that even if Obama wins in November he'll still be out of office by Feb of 2017 at the latest, (the two term standard being another gift from George Washington). That's pretty much proof enough for me that while our system may not be perfect it is at least functional enough to have prevented a dictator from coming to power these last 200 some odd years.
Well, on the basis of preventing a singular person from installing themselves as a dictator, autocrat, tyrant, etc etc. I do agree. Our system has worked, and it has worked exceedingly well.
Where i find myself skeptical is your statement of"government by the people". A statement which harkens Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address, "government of the people, by the people, for the people". Which again, is where my skepticism lays in today's Government.
Money, like knowledge, is power. Lobbyists, influential people, and organizations with bags of money have tremendous influence and sway in our government that often enough supersedes the will of the people.
the_tyrant
03-07-12, 05:28 PM
@Penguin
Why am I commenting? I read an article, and I passively pointed out that I agreed with some things in it.
Putin has won in the only way that really matters: Once again, he is president of Russia.
You can call him whatever you want, but it is obvious to everyone that he is "gaming" the constitution to get himself a third term. I frankly don't think he cares, and I pointed that out earlier.
Now there is a really interesting comment under the article:
I heard that they caught poll workers in Dagestan on webcam stuffing ballot boxes, but that this district's results were invalidated immediately... I also heard that "carousel voting" - where people are bussed from district to district to vote multiple times - was wide-spread.
But here's the thing: With such massive amounts of people voting, the number of people you'd have to bus around in order to manipulate the final result by even one percent would be staggering. And critics of this election are claiming a discrepancy of more than 15%. Doing the numbers:
Population of Russia: 143 million
Number of people who voted (64%): 91.5 million
15% of voting total: 13.7 million
Let's say you arranged to bus a bunch of people around, each one voting 4 times in different districts (and Russia's districts are pretty vast outside of Moscow). You'd have to bus around 3,425,000 people. Assuming you could fit 50 people per bus, you'd need to mobilize 68,500 buses to make that work.
I'm just saying, that'd be a pretty impressive stunt to pull off...
Mind you, Putin is ex-KGB, but I don't think he is that good.
And anyways, even if the results are inflated by a few %, he must have gotten more than 50%, AKA, enough to avoid a runoff
August,
I did not mean to imply you literally meant "killing". I just wrote it that way because your post ,metioned tyranny you spoke about in a context that surely was meant as something negative, worth to get rid of or to get past beyond. I wanted to make the point of my message clear in a rush.
:DL I understand. Rush posting has got me in more trouble, especially on this particular forum, than one might think!
But I do believe that tyranny is always a negative, especially in the long run. Sure you might be able to cite a benevolent king or dictator here and there throughout history but such good will never lasts beyond their lifetime, which is the great failing of such a political system. It is just not stable. Certainly not as stable as our present system with all it's warts.
Well, on the basis of preventing a singular person from installing themselves as a dictator, autocrat, tyrant, etc etc. I do agree. Our system has worked, and it has worked exceedingly well.
Where i find myself skeptical is your statement of"government by the people". A statement which harkens Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address, "government of the people, by the people, for the people". Which again, is where my skepticism lays in today's Government.
Money, like knowledge, is power. Lobbyists, influential people, and organizations with bags of money have tremendous influence and sway in our government that often enough supersedes the will of the people.
It's understandable to be skeptical but I believe there is danger in making such feelings too public as they have a tendency to become reality. It's like how people often say, usually with a sigh, that they will never see the social security they have been contributing for. To my mind that only gives the powers that be reason to believe that they can get away with it. After all it's always easier to steal what folks don't believe they have.
Skybird
03-07-12, 06:07 PM
I was just pointing out the original meaning of the word "tyrant". It simply means the reign by one leader - good or evil king, despot, hero, villain, whatever. The negative understanding of it seems to have been added the more termns like individual liberty and individuality won in value in Western culture/history. In other parts of the world the belief in the principle goodness of "tyranny" - following a leader at the top - is still pretty much beyond doubt. Especially in cultural contexts that put more emphasis on collectivism, and less on individuality.
I would also argue that the stability of the system we have in the West is the problem, since it has first bred the warts it now gets eaten up by - and right that inherent "stability" - realised by the self-protection of those running it - now makes it so difficult if not impossible to get rid of the warts. We live in Wartistan now, therefore.
We should have started to burn out warts from the very first one on. Now our once so smooth and shiny teint is ruined, making us look like heads of old vultures.
The obvious dysfunctionality of our ideas for economic and financial systems, that started to hijack the world in 2007 at the latest, does not help in giving us more credibility. We created a loud party - but the hotter the going, the shorter it lasts. Illustrating a copmpoetence to design and maintain a system that survives over longer time and can achiueve a dynamic balance in ther situation, and is self-maintaining in its use of resources, our system is NOT. I see the gloss and the glamour, of course I do, yes. But that is not by what I define the value of a way of life. The lasting survivability of a set of ideas, of ways of life, giving back to the future what we take from the present so that it can all go on in later cycles as well and benefits later generations as well instead of just allowing us a short period of high life and creating cataclysm for all coming later - that is what counts. I think we still have a long way to go before enough people of us understand this - if the learning does not take place too late already.
I was just pointing out the original meaning of the word "tyrant". It simply means the reign by one leader - good or evil king, despot, hero, villain, whatever. The negative understanding of it seems to have been added the more termns like individual liberty and individuality won in value in Western culture/history. In other parts of the world the belief in the principle goodness of "tyranny" - following a leader at the top - is still pretty much beyond doubt. Especially in cultural contexts that put more emphasis on collectivism, and less on individuality.
I would also argue that the stability of the system we have in the West is the problem, since it has first bred the warts it now gets eaten up by - and right that inherent "stability" - realised by the self-protection of those running it - now makes it so difficult if not impossible to get rid of the warts. We live in Wartistan now, therefore.
We should have started to burn out warts from the very first one on. Now our once so smooth and shiny teint is ruined, making us look like heads of old vultures.
The obvious dysfunctionality of our ideas for economic and financial systems, that started to hijack the world in 2007 at the latest, does not help in giving us more credibility. We created a loud party - but the hotter the going, the shorter it lasts. Illustrating a copmpoetence to design and maintain a system that survives over longer time and can achiueve a dynamic balance in ther situation, and is self-maintaining in its use of resources, our system is NOT. I see the gloss and the glamour, of course I do, yes. But that is not by what I define the value of a way of life. The lasting survivability of a set of ideas, of ways of life, giving back to the future what we take from the present so that it can all go on in later cycles as well and benefits later generations as well instead of just allowing us a short period of high life and creating cataclysm for all coming later - that is what counts. I think we still have a long way to go before enough people of us understand this - if the learning does not take place too late already.
I think you're confusing normal human nature with political systems. Those warts might be a problem for us but in spite of them we still have a functioning republic.
No system run by a tyrant, however benevolent, survives him. So do I want to live under a somewhat flawed system that can and has lasted (so far) for over two centuries or do I want to live under a benevolent dictator and watch that benevolence and all shreds of civil rights and freedom vanish when he dies? I'll pick the former every time, warts and all.
Skybird
03-07-12, 07:47 PM
My argukment that our countries by far no NO functional republics, states, democracies. Notm only have their functionality been hijacked by the few and tailored to serve the few's own interest for power and financial and economic influence, but the distortions also produced a self-dynamic in distorting the system ever on. Cliques are running the system over here, bypassing the electorate'S votings. Big money runs your country, bypassing the electorate. Maybe you think that having elections have a meaning today anymore, but I say they are just clever camouflage to keep the people quite in the streets while securing the statzus quo for those soicial castes controlling things in the background. And the factual constraints and inherent necessities of ordinary everyday politics do the rest for limiting the freedom degrees of any govenrment being elected to form something new creatively , or even to just break the pattern of the very system itself. Our states are effectively bancrupt, and live on tic, which means they have no freedom of acting at all - or only at the price of increasing debts. There are the obligations from older treaties. Laws formed by past adminsitrations. And always again yiou run into the cliques in the background who make sure that nobvody is able to chnager so much that the system of maintaining these cliques would suffer real damage. Its in Germany that way. It is in europe that way. And it is in America that way. By its Bsic Law, Germayn was meant to be something different. So was the US meant to be different by the general thinoing of the founders and first influential polticalins and thinkers and authors of those old historic documents.
And tyrants not leaving behind a state surving their own death, that is not necessarily true. Sometimes tyrants form dynastieys, may it be on the basis of brutal force, may it be on the basis of the love of their people. A king, in the end, also is a tyrant. Or the Romans, in the young republic: in times of war, they stepped back from the principles of having a "democratic" gremium where the social elites and the representaitves of the ordinary people met and decided in disucssion how to run the state. Much rivalry there due to different interests between the upper class, and the lower class. However, int imes of war and crisis, they elected two tribunes, who then took over all power and command and reigned in y tyrant'S style until the crisis was solved. After that they were expected to hand over power again, and to step back. In theory at least :) : some did, some tried to do that not.
Demcioarcy was another attempt to solve the problpem of tynrannies: tyranny is nice and well if the leader is competent and righteous. Ifg he is not, if he is a dilletant or a criminal egoist, thenh you have a problem.
But have modern democracies really solved this probkem by having a cycle or electing or re-electing representatives in regualr intervals peacefully? Incompetence and narcissm reigns. Lobbyism is omnipresent. And as I just explained and argue all, the time, the system makes sure that only candidates representing its own rules, the interests of the cliques having hijacked it, come to influence and power. Democracy is no safeguard against corrupt leaders, not at all, we just learn it the hard way once again both in the EU and in the US currently; and it also brings not the bright and cpompetent to power, but for the molst: the loudest, the richest, the influential ones having good ties in the network of cliques, the good manipulators and liars to the masses.
It just does not work as intended.
It could mayb eonly work as intended in social communtiies that are to small that every member can seed and know what every other member is doing, and what consequnces the other'S actions have for all others, and what consequences one's own actions have for all others. That limits the functionality of democracies to extremely small community sizes: as I said, only a few hundred, at best a very few thousand people. But our current national states? With dozens of millions of people? Complexity degrees of organisations and process and interaction patterns that nobody can overwatch and understand anymore? Or supranational organisations like the EU, the UN ? Impossible. I cannot imagine that to ever function as advertised. Why is that? You said it yourself, you pointed to human nature.
In our historical papers, our nations look nice and well. But the reality that they came to, has little or nothing to do with these old visions.
Which, for a closing, brings me to my favourite sentence that I have repeated already so often:
We are too many people.
My argukment that our countries by far no NO functional republics, states, democracies.
If you really believe that then that is your truth. Myself, i'm not willing to so easily surrender the game.
In theory at least :) : some did, some tried to do that not. Exactly my point. Once you surrender your liberty to a tyrant you cannot guarantee that he will ever give it back. When a successful tyrant dies, however popular or beneficial he may have been, there is absolutely no guarantee that his successor will be anything like him. Whatever stability his regime had quickly dissolves into a bloodbath as the various factions vie for power so whoever does emerge as the new "dear leader" already has blood on his hands before he ever issues his first edict.
I just don't see how any of that is preferable to the system that I live under now. YMMV.
But have modern democracies really solved this probkem by having a cycle or electing or re-electing representatives in regualr intervals peacefully? Incompetence and narcissm reigns. Lobbyism is omnipresent.This implies that such things do not also happen in a dictatorship too. Obviously that is not true, especially in the internecine warfare that I mention above. I suppose that a potentate, if he is strong enough, might be able to put some damper on this but then again he might just as easily encourage it if it helps to keep him on his throne.
It is a system that bases everything upon the whims of a single fallible man who is under the absolutely corrupting influence of absolute power. No thanks.
It just does not work as intended.Well maybe not but it certainly does work well enough to be a better choice than any transitory utopia created by a benevolent dictator.
We are too many people.You'll get no argument from me there. This is ultimately a self correcting problem though. If we don't figure out a way to regulate world population on our own then eventually nature will do it for us through disease or some other equally effective way.
Penguin
03-07-12, 11:54 PM
@Penguin
Why am I commenting? I read an article, and I passively pointed out that I agreed with some things in it.
Nope; a "who cares" does not imply an agreement, not does it imply that you answer has got anything to do with the OP's article. It is just the equivalent of Alfred E. Neuman's famous phrase: "What? Me worry?" - a show of indifference.
Your "he has the power you know, legitimacy is good, but power is what really matters " also bears no reference to the article, written as an universal statement, thus looking as if it represents your opinion.
Your quote "Putin has won in the only way that really matters: Once again, he is president of Russia." shows where you are coming from. You seem to think that this is the opinion of the article. First the quote cuts of the sentence behind it, which is essential for the context. Second, the article consists of several layers, (op-piece, fact reporting, rhetorics and polemics) so if you think your quote represents the authors opinion, you are wrong.
A suggestion: why not print out this article and discuss it in class - English, or politics? I don't want to sound lecturing, but to provide the experience about different layers in writing, and an experience how different statements can be seen by different persons (especially when taken out of the context)
Now there is a really interesting comment under the article:
Mind you, Putin is ex-KGB, but I don't think he is that good.
And anyways, even if the results are inflated by a few %, he must have gotten more than 50%, AKA, enough to avoid a runoff
The logical fallacy of this comment is that the poster implies that all of the vote discrepancy solely is the result of "bussing".
It doesn't matter for the judgement if he would have had more than 50% of the votes anyway. If you have 1 billion in your account and you forge a single Dollar note, you are still a forger, no matter if the rest of your dough is legit.
Hottentot
03-08-12, 12:22 AM
Not to interrupt these interesting discussions, but I'd just like to thank CCIP for his in-depth answer.
:salute:
Skybird
03-08-12, 07:05 AM
If you really believe that then that is your truth. Myself, i'm not willing to so easily surrender the game.
A game that is already run by depending on the good will of foreign nations. I just say: finances.
Exactly my point. Once you surrender your liberty to a tyrant you cannot guarantee that he will ever give it back. When a successful tyrant dies, however popular or beneficial he may have been, there is absolutely no guarantee that his successor will be anything like him. Whatever stability his regime had quickly dissolves into a bloodbath as the various factions vie for power so whoever does emerge as the new "dear leader" already has blood on his hands before he ever issues his first edict.
The liberty voters hand over to the politcal olihgarchy they legitimise also does not get handed back by said oligarchy. Names come and go, the the principle nature of peope and chracaters gaining ranks and influence within that plltical system amongst whose candidates peope mare allowed to "chose", stay thew same. Its always the same thinking schools that parties represent. It'S always the same network of cliques parties are grounded in. Its alwaays the same financiers in the background. A name gets voted off by people - and some time later he gets inmstalled somewhgere else, have fallen the ladder upwards. I could vote for CDU, and see Germany being sold out to the EU. I could vote for SPD and see Germany being sold out to the EU nevertheless. I could vote for the communists, and would see Germany being sold out even faster. I could vote the liberal FDP, and would see Germany being sold out slighty slower. But the trend always is the same. The level of corruption remnaiosn tio be the same. The thinkiong dogma stays the same. The names having real influence in the backgorund stay the same. You cannot vote them in or off. Names change - structures stay. Or take thre pöolitical dynsties in the US - do you really believe that the Kennedys and Bushs have a genetical superoirity that enables them to have all their family generations being so superior in competence that they - as if by magic - come to polical offices time and again? It is modern aristocracy you see there.
And what means: having a choice? The choice people have in their minds - or the lack of. A brainwashzed mind has no choice but may be made to assume it has. Commercial adverts and political campaigns cost hilarious ammounts of money. Nobody wastes such ammounts of money if he does not get a return from it. Adverts work, and campaigning works, too. The wanted effect is to prevent folowers chnaging sides, and to win new followers. Beside all that stupidity and vitirol, schematic bacl-and-white-painting and propaganda, adverts and campaigns work. And they work for reducing the freedom of the mind that shoudl chose. A free mind that can choose freely, is a risk. Nobody wants it. The power of the "elites" - needs the weakness, the incompetence, the illusion of the crowds. The best way to control the crowds, is to install the censor of their opinion inside their minds. That's what politicians work for most of their time!
I do not call this freedom to choose. By rules, it is there, yes. But by capability and opportunity, it is at least handicapped by an alarming level.
This implies that such things do not also happen in a dictatorship too. Obviously that is not true, especially in the internecine warfare that I mention above. I suppose that a potentate, if he is strong enough, might be able to put some damper on this but then again he might just as easily encourage it if it helps to keep him on his throne.
A dictator - that is feared or disliked by his people - needs to control the people by force, intimidation, terror. Western politicians try to control the people by thought control, suggestive phrasing, manipulation of society from the backgrounds of the visible political stage. The effect is the same. You noted my attacks on the EU - it is a very obvious example of trying to gain control by changing the cultural climate, brainwashing people by censoring language and thinking, eroding established democratic principles silently. Its about making peoiple censoring themselves voluntarily. The result is the thinking of often so-called political correctness. The ironay is that many poltiicians fall for this trap themselves, too. That is one of the elements of self-dynam,ic I mentioned earlier. The system feeds back on those installing and maintaining it. It'S not the intended one way road of cause and effect.
It is a system that bases everything upon the whims of a single fallible man who is under the absolutely corrupting influence of absolute power. No thanks.
With only small variation the same could be said about Western nations, too, including yours and mine. The illusion of the greater freedom we have, is just this: illusory. A dictator'S mind-prison may be made with steel walls, makijng them more obvious. Our democracy'S mind-prisons have supersoft rubber walls, incraisng resaitence so slowly only that you hardly realise it in the beginning, you can push the wall by almsot one meter before they make you stop pushing anymore. It'S smoother and softer. Yes. But a prison envertheless - you can't get out if you do not break the system's rules. But then - you are the outlaw.
Well maybe not but it certainly does work well enough to be a better choice than any transitory utopia created by a benevolent dictator.
A tyrant'S regime that is successful in establishiong a dynsty, may last for severla generations. The cultural spike we have seen forming up in the West, also is transitory only, and we definitely are bveyond our climax. Today, our state structures are so ill and rotten and debt-ridden that I do not see how we will ever escape from this. The wealth we made we did not use for putting aside savinbg s and installing a stabile status with just y dynamic fluctuation within certain limits, no, we used it for "growing", and becoming more people. That way not only the wealth got eaten up, but the imminent demand at a given time has been increased, too, and it grew at faster pace than compensation for the bigger stress on our resources could be found. That'S why not only we do not earn saviongs any more that we could pout aside for later times of hardness, but why we could not even maintain the satus quo, but fall deep and depper into the finacial as well as the ecological credit trap.
:salute:
Another perspective: from long-time opposition activist, politician and writer Valeriya Novodvorskaya.
http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/50466/ (in Russian)
Here is a condensed translation of her main points for you:
95 years ago, on these early days of March, the Tzar Nicholas II was signing his abdication. He made a great many mistakes (the worst of which - the small but lost Russo-Japanese war and the great victorious First World War), but still gave Russia the October Manifesto of 1905, which cemented in law all declared political parties and assembled the first parliament in the history of Russia - the Duma. He was being pressured to abdicate for a long time. Russia had outlived the monarchy; multi-party politics were already real, the Duma was not a fiction, St. Petersburg was full of political leaders, courts were independent, as were labour unions.
He abdicated both on behalf of himself, and his son, and did not even ask for any guarantees. Not for himself, nor for his family. He handed over power to the Provisional Government - until the General Assembly could gather, which was already on the horizon. He did not want to spill blood in order to preserve power, and the whole nightmare that followed afterwards was not his fault. [CCIP: this is where I disagree, but anyway...] The true greatness of Nicholas was revealed after the arrest of the emperor's family, and ended in martyrdom in a basement at Yekaterinburg.
In the same modest and voluntary manner, Mikhail Gorbachev left his post of president of the USSR, not wishing for a civil war, not resorting to violence and receiving as his only guarantee a two-dollar state pension. Yeltsin also left voluntarily, sensing the determined dislike and ungratitude of the people. Even the great Charles de Gaulle, who saved the French from the shame of the capitulation of 1940, retreated before France herself, when she rejected his project of political reforms in the referendum of 1969.
But the Soviet gerontocrats, who were carried out of the Kremlin with their legs forward, were not like this, nor is their heir Putin. Putin has alienated everyone who is ready to live in a manner contrary to the Soviet status quo - and even many pro-Soviet reactionaries are sick of him, too. He has lost his charisma, he has become silly, the market progressives mock him. The West speaks to him through their teeth. All the more since he has no achievements to his credit. He didn't give freedom to anyone, he took it away. And he is ready to stifle the press, to bring troops into the capital, to take it all the way to a civil war in a nuclear state, to fight it out with his political, economical and intellectual opponents.
Well, history knows examples when an obsolete regime, not wishing to depart gracefully, still departed, but in an ugly manner. Like Nero, Caligula, Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Ghaddafi.
Just thought that this would be a valuable perspective to be aware of :yep:
The winner is the one with the biggest bank account and connections to the banks. :shifty:
Next David Icke exposes the Russian lizard men. :O:
And another post-script that I came across today - written by the 19th century writer and politician Saltykov-Schedrin, it is still just as relevant today:
If the Russians are allowed to choose their own leader, they elect the most deceitful, ignoble, harsh one; together with him they murder, steal and rape, and subsequently assign all of the blame to him. After some time passes, the church canonizes him.
So, really not quite a new issue, but a historical tragedy merely continuing...
Onkel Neal
03-11-12, 05:16 PM
This is why George Washington was such a great man. He had the same personal power that Putin does but unlike Vlad he voluntarily gave it up and thereby set our country on the path to government by the people.
Right by 1000%:yep:
We should never overlook this one significant man, who set the right trend for our country. Many expected Washington to run and win the office for life. Thank god we had this man, and the ones who followed.
Putin has made a mockery of Russia's "democratic" institution. He is not the President of Russia, he is their dictator. I feel bad for those people.
Jimbuna
03-11-12, 06:06 PM
http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/wp-content/uploads/SadPutin560.jpg
Onkel Neal
03-11-12, 08:41 PM
http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/wp-content/uploads/SadPutin560.jpg
He didn't cry when Krusk was lost. He didn't cry when the theater was stormed.
Scary part is, he's "crying" and knows the election was rigged...:shifty:
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