Nuke China. :D

Its all well comrades.

These ljudy (people) were acting out of their own accord - nobody forced them to talk bad about tovarysh Putin. If you're not going to complain, nothing can happen to you. You will be safe.

So we need not fear. The party doesn't harm people without a reason.

Absolutely nonsense! I've never ever met any person who have felt "dirty hands of Kremlin" on "every single area of his/her everyday life". Or please tell what you mean by saying about those "areas".

Seems you just cannot take into account that there ARE people who are every single day talking VERY bad of Putin and they are not in jail, they are not beeing shot into neck, and what's more - nobody is going to kill them or put into jail. That's what I've been trying to tell you in my last post.

By the way I am not trying to say that I have nothing to complain. Taxes law, corrupt officials (but not every one of them are corrupt), "point building" that changes well-known faces of our cities (especially Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but that is not only Russian problem - I saw the same process in Kiev too), inept Ministry of Culture and so on... But not the lack of freedom :)

I cannot agree with you on that case. Though I am open for constructive discussion.

Best Regards!

Dmitry Markov, as you seem to be at least a bit naive, I have collected some links for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Po..._assassination

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexand...enko_poisoning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Khodorkovsky

From the beginning:

1. Politkovskaya was a renegade. While our soldiers were fighting with bandits in Chechnya she wrote tones of pro-Basaev's crap. She was talking about "brave highland warriors who fight for their independence". Look if your country has a fight somwhere you would support your army or the enemy? IMHO the guys who choose the last may be of some interest for qualified psychiatrist. After her conduct during war in Chechnya she couldn't have been taken seriously.

2. Litvinenko was a renegade too. He was selling his country. He was corrupt agent and his turning towards Berezovsky shows that completely (As you don't know maybe Berezovsky was one of those whose money helped to rise Doudaev's regime in Chechnya). But I think that if our spec ops have really retired him - they should have done it with more elegance - not to make such a noise of this operation. And better - he should have been taken back home to stand before Tribunal. Only thing I can blame our State in this case - for being ineffective in gathering investigation materials. But maybe this was impossible because Litvinenko was not a lamb - being criminal he was also a trained agent and and he wiped out his tracks as well as he could. In any case he has broken oath and there is an oppinion that he has got what he deserved.

3. As for Garry Casparov... Have you ever read what he says? It would be interesting to know oppinion of competent psychiatrist on his account too. And of course I cannot respect the subject who, pretending to be Russian leader, speaks English on his meetings... Whom he is adressing to? He and the likes of him would never gain any moral support until they would offer a constructive program. The only thing they do is their stupid "marсhes of discordant" (марши несогласных). They only criticise and criticise but when they would tell us how they are going to make our life better?

4. Hodorkovsky case is more complicated and there are some questions to our State. First of all he is most likely a thief and he is in jail for being thief. His company is guilty in concealment of taxable income in trilions of rubles (billions of dollars). What is worse they were arranging assasinations of concurents and mere people who were somehow preventing them from obtaining more concessions. What I don't like in this history? Well Hodorkovsky is definitely not the only one who gathered his wealth in such an unjust way. But he was the only one who went to jail. Why? Because he tried to make his way into state power. He began to buy local officials of higher and higher rank. Everyone in big business does it but Hodorkovsky has overstepped some line that in couple with his being №1 Russian billionaire made him an easy object for show trial. The other two evil ones Berezovsky and Gusinsky (strangely all their last names are ended with "sky" :) ) are unfortunately abroad. But what for the others who are home? They are not being facing the trial. Does that mean that the State made a deal with criminals of first wave of our new billionaires? I would never believe that our Office of Public Prosecutor couldn't have found any materials about tax concealment or fraud to imprison the remnants if it had its will. So we see double standart approach :nope: But again we cannot blame the State for imprisoning Hodorkovsky. We can blame it for he is the only one.

Another interesting thing is for dealing with those "marсhes of discordant". First stone flies into garden of the ones who organize those marches. a) Their choice of the places for their flash mobs could have been more rational. Now it seems that they try to do everything to annoy people around: instead of coming into a park or some other place where they would not disturb everyday life they choose to come to central streets and squares, blocking the traffic, dropping garbage. They never ask for permission to do all that and they cry about end of free speach when officials try to stop them.
b) There are is one simple rule of making flash mobs that are being taught at schools on Fundamentals of Survival lessons (there is such object in Russian schools) : an action should never change its format. If it is a meeting - it should remain a meeting, if it is a march - it should remain a march. What was made in St Petersburg: at first it was announced that an action would be a meeting. The public gathered, than they suddenly decided that they want to march the streets... Police is trying to stop the crowd, the crowd cries that the Police are fascists (you need to have in mind that for Russian to be called fascist is a very hard offence because every family have suffered a loss in WWII) and that they are "feedom fighters". The Police are getting angry and then it comes to blows.

And here flies a stone into the garden of local officials:

a) The number of Police that are engaged (about 1000) is twice as more than the number of march members (about 500).
b) The type of Police forces is wrong - thay are OMON (Police special forces). They come in full ammunition with helmets heavy bucklets and they stand there under hot sun rays for hours during what was going to be there holiday.
When stupid march leaders are calling for crowd to go into streets from the square officials make a decision to block the entrance into square so the crowd could not brake through into the city.
You must take into account that this is a holiday and there are a lot of common people in the square too who are not taking part in the action and now they are blocked along with the flash mob guys.
Then action leaders are calling for their listeners to force the lines of OMON. They try to do so calling the OMON "fascists". After that the fight begins in which suffer innocent people who weren't let to get out of there.
Seems that both sides were acting to inflict a vexation from the common people. And they both had made a lot of mistakes.

Best Regards!

I've been writing previous post being in hurry so I would edit it a bit :) There maybe some grammar mistakes. Sorry.

Best Regards

Nothing wrong with your grammar from what I can tell.

The question here was not whether you want to take her her seriously or not.

So you mean it was a necessary secret service operation? Then I must say it was very badly executed.

Ok here I must admit to you that no one here - including myself - knows what he actually says. The fact that he is "pro West" - which we usually associate with positive things like free speech, fair elections and free trade - is enough that people laybel him with the "good guy" stereotype.

However, I assume someone with his intelligence should be taken seriously.

"Double standard" is a fitting term. That was a main criticism of the new russia from the beginning.

As to the марши несогласных. You lost me on this one. And I would like to warn your arguments are exactly the same that have been used every time a regime wants to suppress the demonstration right (and thereby freedom of speech): that the demonstrators started the violence on innocent people etc.

Anyway. I agree with you that we western believe too much what the TV tells us about Russia, and the TV works on extreme simplifications. But at least our TV is independent, at least politically (economically it is not).

But maybe you have misconceptions about us, too. We are not only thinking in black white terms about your country. Of course a lot people here are bashing Putin because we think he made the elections a farce. But we also cannot deny that he is one of the most successful russian politicians ever. And that possibly he acts on the rationale that it's better to keep power by undemocratic means, lest it is wrung from his hands by the people who are not acting in the interest of the russian people. Like in ancient Greece a dictator was often seen as the saviour of a city. The verdict on Putin is not spoken, and I must admit I always found him a damn impressive man. Is that what you mean?

In fact it's a pity we did not start an own threat. I would actually find it interesting to discuss about Putins Russia, state cult like the наши movement, and such things.

Пока!

And on second thought, you are doing yourself a bad service if you stand in defense of China.

No one, I repeat no one would discuss a boycott if the Olympics were in Moscow. The problems in China are on a completely different scale - in China a human life isn't worth anything - it really makes no sense to throw Russia and China in the same pot. Even the Soviet regime was disgusted by chinese methods as far back as the 60's - which led to the famous schism in the red camp.

IT doesn't pay to be a torch bearer for this games

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/pro...420237004.html

Shame they didn't smash the torch into a hundred little pieces. It would seem you can only REALLY protest when the government likes it. So much pussy footing over china. Wish brown would actually grow some balls hes a waste of bloody space at the moment. an apeaser in every sense of the word!

i just say two words:

use waterbombs

1. Politkovskaya.
Most unlikely she was assassinated by an order of someone in FSB. They are not SO stupid.Most wise conduct towrds her was to let her live and write any crap she wanted. As I've said no one here cared for her at all (except Garry Casparov maybe...). And it was a conduct of authorities untill her death... Putin once said that this murder is a crime towards State and I agree with him on this case.

2. Litvinenko

That was my point. If only it realy was an intelligence operation. There are a lot of other versions and I would not take Scotland-Yard's one as the only true. Anyway again it would be much better to bring this man home to face a trial.

3. Casparov

Garry Kimovich better stayed a champion chess player. He is inept as politician. I West wants to improve itself in eyes of Russian people it'd better chose another figure. Everything he says and does is a complete farce. In couple with the fact that he is being Western-payed all of this won't make him dominant influence.
Again all he does is that he says "Putin is bad". But who is good? Okay we'll throw away Putin but what's next? What is the program that would make our life better? Garry Kimovich never says. He doesn't have any program. Than what's all his hysteria is for?
Have you ever heard Bobby Fisher? They are both of the same field - chess players :|\\

4. Maybe you didn't understand what my point on marches is - I tried to say that both sides do wrong. Casparov's guys do everything to begin struggle, officials are inept in avoiding it.

Again - have you saw any such march with your own eyes? I happened to see one in Moscow.

There were Casparov's guys along with "Nazional-Bolsheviks" of Limonov (never heard of him?) - about 500 total (population of Moscow is 10 500 000 officialy so you see how "strong" their movement is). There were about 1500 Policemen (OMON mostly). And even more photographers.
Well, those "march" guys were crying something for some time, then they tried to break through the Police lines. Police worked fast and effective (not like in Petersburg) and very soon it was over. Remembering '93 Police worked very gentle but that didn't prevent Casparov from crying about "Police used dogs who teared innocent unarmed people..." actually I didn't see any dog...

As for making elections a farce... Well it really was a farce but not because Putin has suppressed the opposition. The fact is there is no opposition in Russia that has a platform and which is capable of getting support from the people. There is no one to believe among the opposition. Nobody has proven himself worthy of people's trust. Nobody offers an alternative. And unfortunately it is one of the weak point of our State today as the opponents can proclaim "end of democracy" and other slogans which are easy to form public oppinion. I understand that it is abnormal situation but it's us - we are all abnormal here :)

But what was the something they were shouting? It might be important to know!

But thats exactly what I am saying. The opposition gets suppressed already before it can act as opposition - they get no platform, they get no space in the media, they are prevented from participating in the elections, their demonstrations are dissolved before people like you can understand what they are shouting, they get accused of supporting the chechnian terrorists and some of them fall ill with lead poisoning.

Besides there was a Breshnev joke that went like: "No, in the USSR there is no opposition. Do you see any?"

Yes. If the flame went off in front of the whole world, that would make my day.

The chinese paid millions and millions to get their propaganda show - so I think they deserve to get something for their money. Also f_ck the IOC. These greedy bastards have sold out the olympic idea. Celebrating gold medals while 10 km away people are slowly dying in interrogation cellars? While the chinese do their little apartheid thing in Tibet? Nuts!

EDIT: Vive la France!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7334545.stm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080407...sfranceoly2008

I found myself in quite an embarassing position these days.

Despite the fact that I'm going against what the Chinese government does these days, I feel that some of the people out there are acting against Chinese collectively, which, of course, sadden me

If I were a foreigner, I would definitely avocate putting out the flame with a fire extinguisher, in the same burtal way as how the government officials treat some of the protesters or so called "counter-revolutionists"

Yet, if I draw this parallel to an incident happened in the past, I would have different points of view.


How would you feel if you were a German or the Sydney mayor, how would you feel if someone pulled out such a trick on you and embarass you in front of the public?

Although Olympic is always promoted as "Politics free", some elements or traces of politics can be found in it. The full support of Olympic by the British leaders is clearly a classical example.

If you were IOC, you would definite BAR the country from hosting the event unless they had invested a large sum of money to make you happy, wouldn't you?
Undoubtedly, all politics are around of the main issue ~ benefit. If there is benefit, everything is OK. If not, vice versa.