Is Russian democracy failing because it's Russian?

[axi]

It's in trouble because it's not a democracy anymore.

So, under Yeltsin it was a democracy?

[Heresson]

More than today

[Pekka]

Exactly what Heresson says. It might not have been perfect earlier, but it was more than it is today.

[molly bloom]

It's not like Russians have had much experience of democracy in action though.

[Saras]

Россию умом не понять

[Pekka]

What? It's not like this current situation has gone to what it is by accident. This is not some sort of.. result from random actions. There has been a methodical and every precise surgery, from pieces of democracy and trying to build one to a new situation.

I mean, you don't take the free press out by accident. You don't have state owned tv stations by accident and use it as your own by accident. And it's not comparable to US media situation, because US media can do what ever they want and turn on anyone they want. Even Chomsky said US media is too powerful, they have too much money and power to be punked around. So if they run a biased view, it's because they chose to. It's not because they have to.

To answer the topic question, no I don't think it's failing because it's Russian. It's failing, why, I don't know. If you were to question if Russians want a democracy that actually works well, they'd want it. They want to have good things just like everyone else. But many people remember some things were better under communism. Maybe they had work even, maybe they got paid. Maybe it wasn't much, but it sure as hell was more than now, and when it boils down to it, the normal folks don't care about other things, principles, ideas and ideologies so much as they'd care how good they are doing and what kidn of opportunities there are out there. So no.. in sense of what they want, they want what we want. Under communism, they had something, now they have even less, under 'our system'. Of course the problem is 'our system' is not exactly working there now. It doesn't matter if you have what ever system if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, who gives a **** what the name of the system is what they are supposed to have, because they don't have it to begin with.

[Pekka]

Right, and also there are problems of corrupt nature.. I mean what do you think happens when there's not much money going around. Cops are not paid proper salary, army isn't paid proper salary.. no wonder some of the cops take some money, because they can't live off of their regular one. It's like accepted part, it's what some of them have to do. There's wealth, sure, but is it spreading around, no it isn't. There's the recipe for corrupt atmosphere. It's not like everyone just wants to get rich, no, most of folks just want to get by, and it's known, so it's also more accepted because it's what you have to do sometimes. So then it's full blown and nothing much you can do to it.

The only way to break this situation where every road goes to world of **** is to have more money going around.. and how do you do that? Well, the rich folks who bought off state owned really lucrative and great businesses when the communism fell, well it's not like they'll spread it around more than they have to. It's a situation where that great wealth, great great wealth, is going around the same circles, the folks are not able to join the action. So it's not like there's even a chance to have better opportunities now. Good for some, but very very very few. So what are you going to do? ****.. I don't know. It's easy to say, well, create new businesses, create new money, export export export, have innovations, support the starting businesses, start with new fields of business like technology or something like that.. but it ain't happening like this because no one has the capital to do it, then you already have to corruption situation to begin with, adn these days you have no guarantees the state won't just come in and take your **** by force and make up few laws, like we just saw with Yukos. The fundamental mistakes have already been made when the SU fell. They sold basically every good thing to few private investors and business men, and everyone else was left with nothing, and that's no base to start a democracy, with working economy, and with no working economy, you're sure to run out of the democracy soon too.

And the signs of that is rising nationalism, the not so good part of it. YOu got your leader worshippers marching down Moscow in thousands, and the police protects .. them. They were assigned to protect them. That's very.. North Korean. That's because you want to ensure you're the only one who can run the joint and make those changes. Maybe Putin wants to bring more money in. He realizes the situation, he's a smart and intelligent man. But what we don't know yet is will he use these anti-democratic methods to bring more money in, to start running the democracy and lift the economy, or is he using it to gain more power, unquestionable power to Kremlin, and lift the old days back, knowing the current situation is a no win situation and thinking it's the only way, and in the process you need to sooth the people with circus tricks, so you won't get caught pants down doing it.

Who knows, and this is the current question everyone who knows what's happening in there knows. But there's only one bad thing about it, the people won't get bite of action no matter which way they go, and ultimately that can be dangerous to the rest of us. Why? Because you feed the folks by showing you once again belong to a very powerful nation. That's the way how you make them forget they don't have ****, adn they won't have **** in the future either. The feeling of belonging to something great. The feeling of having the weight you can throw around. And that's when OTHER people get miserable too. And THAT is the truly dangerous part, because it'll mean dividing people again, and you start that by isolating yourself from the others, like, Errhmm, what just happened with the Baltics.

Also what's happening with Poland. The massacre of their officers back in the days, you know what happened to it? I mean that's how you keep the original folks from trying to fight back in the future, you kill their officers. Unfortunately that's kind of brutal and wrong, what do you think happened with the investigation? The Poles started their own exclusive one, because otherwise the history would say it never happened, when we KNOW it happened. Same thing with Baltics. It's not like I have to invent this **** up, I only have to smell the same doodoo that happened before, and that's what you call learning from history, and not repeating the same mistakes again. Like a reasonable person should do.

So how do you blame them for it? Well... it's difficult to blame anyone for anything what now happens. I just hope the business dudes and big investors in Europe and US sees the Russia as hot spot for doing business and bring that money there and keep it fair, to bring new money in there, so that the normal folks get some action too. THat's the key, the normal folks need to see the action. If they don't, **** I can go there and have a new system I invented yesterday, if I can make them believe it'll make them see the action, regardless of what I'd actually do.