CNN : Czar Putin

[JohnOfSheffield]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Yeah the place is going to sh*t again, not like it ever lost its stink, though. I do think, however, that the US should be more friendly. I think we've seen that when you threaten a nation, even if it's with something like a missile shield (which they reasonably feel threatened by), it's easy to unite the people of it against you.

No leader will want to appear weak to his electors, if there is a threat the response will always be aggressive because of that.

We need to fucking calm down and stop acting like ADHD kids on a sugar rush, international relations takes seconds to break but decades to fix.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: Pabster
The laugh is on you, OP, for thinking Russia ever was a Democracy.

I agree with Pabster, and you know how that makes me crazy. Russia has NEVER been a democracy, they've never really had freedom or individual liberty, the very idea is not a part of Russian culture and experience, and never has been. They went from dictator to dictator, sometimes with different ideological justifications, but up until VERY recently, Russia has been ruled by an individual or a small group of people. And after the Cold War, their "experiment with democracy" was almost surely doomed to failure...they had nothing to base it on. Of course Putin is turning into the next dictator, it's all the Russians know!

Well, no argument there about Russia not being a democracy right now. But I dunno if dictatorship is all Russian know. I mean there are journalist who are brave enough to go against the government and die for the cause they believe it. That's the first step to a real democracy, to have people who believe in it and sacrifice themselves for it. As long as Russia have people like that, they can become a democratic country. Maybe not the next 10~20 years, but maybe within a generation or two.

Sure, it's not a universal idea...nothing really is. But the problem is that you can't just have a few people, a few people can LEAD the charge, but someone has to be there to follow them. I know that there are Russians who want real democracy for their country, the problem is that the common people are just as happy leaving those folks hanging out to dry. Democracy can't be foisted on a population by the brave few, it's something that EVERYONE has to be behind.

Now maybe you're right, maybe it's the start of a trend that will allow democracy to flourish in Russia within a few generations...but I have my doubts. It's a lot of cultural inertia for a small group of journalists to fight all by themselves. And like I said, the real issue is that there no cultural tradition of democracy for the average Ivan Sixpack to fall back on.

 

[theeedude]

If only oil prices went up in the 90s instead of 00s, Russia could be a much more democratic country now. Oil prices to Russians are like candy to kids. When they tried democracy, they had no candy, when they elected an autocrat, they got candy, so like kids they developed this association, democracy bad, autocracy good, based on that experience.