Way to Russia Talk Lounge

Mogsfan · WayToRussified Joined: 03 Nov 2004 Posts: 490

This topic was brought up before but few Russians responded. Is that indicative or representative of the mood of Russians regarding the topic of democracy and politics in Russia?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1803&e=2&u=/washpost/20050225/pl_washpost/a51587_2005feb24

I have one request: that any respondants to this post keep on topic. Please, no tangents discussing American politics. People who have read my posts know I am no fan of the current American administration and I am more inclined to read alternative news sources and critique Republican/Democrat politics. Thus, this is not a 'the U.S. is a democracy; Russia is not' post. A comparison of systems is another topic and if anyone replies, I appreciate any comments about Russia's political situation and references to why ordinary Russians seem to be silent or feel indifferent towards their government.

Camrade · Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:56 am Post subject:

2Mogsfan

so can you tell: what is the real democracy? how it look like? and what countries are democratic? Smile

for me it's very dificult to say.... cause there's no democracy in the world and it's utopia like pure communism. that's why the phrase "Russia is not democratic" sounds strange

vorteks · Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:56 am Post subject: democracy...

Ideally, a democracy is a political system where the people decide of their future, each individual having an equal power to influence the nations future. That s the most simple definition based on ethymology : demos in greek meaning people and kratia power...power to people, or the majority, ,opposed to power to the few.

USA claims to be a champion of democracy, but actually isn t, it is an oligarchic plutocracy, since lobbies sponsor politicians. The fact that elites manage to create dynasties, like in monarchies, proves that this democracy is disfunctional.

The main feature of a democratic system is the balance between the judicial, executive and executive powers and transparency of information.

I m unsure a pure democracy is a perfect system tho, since masses are highly manipulable, thru political marketing and masses have no conciousness and ethics, diluting the responsability of collective crimes.

What camrade means (correct me if I m wrong) is that Putin refuses to be politically challenged, failing to offer an alternative to a somewhat authoritarian regime. Press is reportedly under control with frequent journalist murders.

I think russians prefer this situatiion to the total chaos that followed the implosion of USSR. A strong government with a will to head to a social democracy is preferable an oligarchy that deprives most of the population from the countries wealth. I do believe Putin is willing to head to a more liberal society once the country is given the infrastructure for its development. For this, the government needs to get the means to eridicate local maffias, by developing an efficient tax system.

I don t see how Dubya s arrogant behaviour, giving democracy lessons to Russia in a former satellite country, will help develop a better cooperation between CEI, EU and USA. Russia is not a vassal of american lobbies and has no need to copy/paste the american darwinist system. It s rich soil resources should allow russians to develop a social democracy like the scandinavian countries, Australia or Canada in a generation, with the ability to become it s own model, with a strong economic and military cooperation with the neighbouring European Union.

MrSpice · Lounge Wizard Joined: 14 Jul 2003 Posts: 3436

We are not talking about relativity of different democracies. I feel that free press is a bedrock of any country that calls itself democratic. In USA the government cannot own or control any TV stations or newspapers by law. That by itself, I think, makes USA a democacy. You can have all the lobbying in the world, but in the end media can apply considerable pressute on polititians and they can be voted out of office inspite of their financial or other connections....

Keoki · Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 11:40 am Post subject:

vorteks · Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:15 pm Post subject:

Kenya2010 · Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 8:20 pm Post subject: UGH!

The truth is that my country is struggling with its own identity. Though we may proclaim to be the proponents of democracy, we cannot hide the fact that when a President is elected millions of citizens feel under-represented and essentially LEFT OUT! Democracy is an idea, with no perfect democracy possible.

Camrade · Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 11:51 pm Post subject:

2Kenya2010

wavetossed · WayToRussified Joined: 27 Jun 2004 Posts: 337

This is a typical arrogant American question generally posed by people who do not want us to uncover the lid of America's sham democracy.

And then they try to apply American standards to Russia like complaining that the national TV channels are all government owned. Who cares? TV in Russia is not part of the news media, it is entertainment. Do we complain that there is no freedom of the press in American cinemas?

In Russia, the news media exists in the form of newspapers and magazines. There are thousands of each with a wide variety of political viewpoints. That is freedom of the press.

I think the rest of the world can learn a few lessons about democracy from the Russians. After all, when we talk about Russian political culture, we are really talking about the political culture of the Soviet Union. This is the political culture that brought us the bloodless coup led by Yeltsin, the bloodless rose revolution in Georgia and the bloodless orange revolution in the Ukraine. These people have a history of democracy going way back before the people of Rus elected the Romanov family to be emperors. The structure of the Soviet Union was based on democratic processes. It's fatal flaw was the attempt at too much control from the center which caused the whole system to fracture and spinout numerous oligarchs. This began to happen way back in Khrushchev's time, although these "oligarchs" didn't become obscenely rich like the oligarchs enabled by Yeltsin and his American advisors.

Putin is wise to reject American advice because it was American advice that created the chaos of the Yeltsin years. Russia will find its own way, and no doubt the systems of kormlenie (krysha) will fad into the background but remain alive in case they are needed to save the country again in the future.

If this posting seems like the ravings of a madman, then consider please, the possibility that you do not understand Russian history and culture. Try reading a few books like these:

Russia and the Russians (from earliest times to 2001)
by Geoffrey Hoskins ISBN 0-14-029788-X

Black Earth: Russia after the Fall
by Andrew Meier ISBN 0-00-711324-2

You will discover that Russia is not a country that needs to be saved from the outside. It is a country that is saving itself, as it always has done when faced with crises in the past. Print this posting out, and save it away somewhere to read in 20 years. You will see that there was at least one person who was convinced, even as early as 2005, that the 21st century will be the Russian century, in the same sense that the 18th and 19th centuries were British centuries, and the 20th century was the American century. The American empire is on the wane, and the Russian empire is on the rise. Another madman foresaw this same thing. But Zhirinovsky wanted to create the empire by war, and was laughed at by people who understood Hitler's abject failure. The Third Reich did eventually come to be through democratic means showing that war is less powerful than democracy. The European Union is now being used by Putin as the model for the 21st century Russian empire.

However, Putin will not create that empire. He is merely laying the groundwork, reigning in the oligarchs and showing Russian politics that they can be successful if they follow and incremental program of change rather than the vast sweeping changes that Yeltsin attempted and failed. Part of that groundwork is establishing good relations with countries which will eventually join the Russian empire. Turkey, Iran, Syria and the various countries of the former Soviet Union. Bulgaria will join Europe, Moldova is uncertain, but it is unlikely that the EU will grow any further east. Yushchenko understands that as well. His overtures to the US and the EU are short term actions to help him consolidate his position within the Ukraine. This Russo-Turkish federation will be the major power-broker of the 21st century because it will show the world how muslims and non-muslims can live together peacefully in the same society. By the way, the Turkish reference in includes the countries known as the 'Stans as well as numerous Turkic-speaking muslim peoples within the Russian federation today such as Tatars and Bashkirs.

Jutrzenkapolska · VIP Joined: 16 Sep 2004 Posts: 534

MrSpice · Lounge Wizard Joined: 14 Jul 2003 Posts: 3436

[quote="vorteks"]
You don t need to own a media to control it, you just need a network of relations. For example, R. Murdock is a close friend of the Bush dynasty and has strong financial ties with the lobbies they represent. As a matter of fact, Murdock s medias oddly lack any ability to cast a critical eye to the nationalist propaganda neo cons have settled since they took power.

Russians have the means to get contradictory sources of information and make their own mind : The internet is not censored like in China and satellite tv is available.[/quote]

That is true in a sense that certain business interests (like Murdock and his News Corp) can influence political debate and impose certain points of view because they have certain political biases (in case of Mr. Murdock, conservative bias). But still, the TV media is a completely open business in the US. There are lots of independent newtworks, and government by law cannot own TV networks. I am not saying that Russians don't have any access to free press. Internet and satellite TV are noatble exceptions. But by nationalizing TV stations and putting them under government control, the government set a dangerous presedent. And the fact that it's not challenged and is legal under the law, make it possible that the same thing can happen to the internet and satellite TV in the future.

MrSpice · Lounge Wizard Joined: 14 Jul 2003 Posts: 3436

[quote="Keoki"]
But the USG does control the media when it suits its purposes, like banning all journalists from showing maskets returning from Iraq. America, for all its greatness (and I do love it) is probably the most hypocritical country in the world.[/quote]

It's a long standing practice that many journalists agreed to. In fact, some TV networks disobeyed this rule and did show the caskets. The army as more or less independent entity can ban journalists from its territory. And still, this topic of banning journalists was covered and discussed many times on TV and defense department officials were grilled in congress about this practice. You really cannot compare it to the situation where there not a single widely accessible network TV channel that is not controller by the government. And there's a lot of self-censorship on the part of many journalists in the media fearing that they won't have a job if they say "too much"

Dr Fauste · Site Admin Joined: 23 Nov 2004 Posts: 654

I am not even going to read the posts above.
First, democracy is general term. If you look at public corporations, they are a democracy based on how much capital is purchased or risks in the corporation.
Greeks did not have the same democracy as the Americans. Voting was based on the educated and even then it was flawed.

The whole problem with ALL DEMOCRACIES these days, is that the people are not educated to make an informed decision.

Another thing is that USA Democracy is CHRISTIAN democracy and took over 200 YEARS to get blacks to vote and 150 YEARS to get women to vote. So USA has only been a true democracy for 40 years of 229 years of history. Therefore one democracy does not fit all and democracies adapts to modern times. Like wise Russia democracies will adapt.

Mogsfan · WayToRussified Joined: 03 Nov 2004 Posts: 490

Skip · Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:04 am Post subject:

Russians are so accustomed to bribery and corruption that true democracy is totally unintelligible to them full stop. Democracy presupposes understanding with the word "trust" and that very concept is not alive in Russia. It's actually a pointless debate, because by the time anyone comes up with a workable theory of self-government for Russia I think that the polar ice cap will have reached Morocco... Laughing

Since the dissolution (and I choose the word with care...) of the Soviet Union there has been nothing but incredulous disillusionment in the masses who'd expected things to improve... not get worse... in day to day Russian life!

For the vast majority of people democracy has changed many things for the worse on aggregate, not the contrary. If you want to dispute my view then take a walk around the streets where ordinary Russians live out their lives and ask them what they think of Putins government, what democracy means to them, and what democracy has done for them since peristroika... Mad

I cannot help but wonder how many people who express views on this topic have actually seen the way that ordinary Russians live, and indeed, spent any time living amongst them...