"Russia will soon be a one party state"

[Kuciwalker]

Is it ok according to American laws for Kremlin to finance a political party in US Congress?

I'm pretty the answer is yes.

[DinoDoc]

The Clinton's made it clear that it is OK for the PRC to finance campaigns.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Is it ok according to American laws for Kremlin to finance a political party in US Congress?

I'm pretty the answer is yes.

And I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

You don't even allow foreign observers to monitor your elections. Democrats, my ass.

[Serb]

The day after tommorow for the first time in my life I will vote for Putin, not for Commies as I usually do.
And you know why? Because he pisses you off. If a Russian leader pisses the West off that means he leads Russia into the right direction. Russia has no allies except Russian army and Russian fleet (c). Alexander III.
You don't need strong and prosperous Russia, you preffer to see continious Eltsin's-type anarchy here. No way, sirs. We will decide what is good for Russia, what parties will be in our parliament and who will be our president not you. So you can pretty much **** yourself and leave us alone.

Have a nice day.

[LordShiva]

[Spec]

Serb ftw

Spec.

[Lancer]

I'd vote for Putin too. Not because he pisses off the west, that's just silly. No, I'd vote for him because I'm too old for the draft and there's nothing on TV.

[notyoueither]

In many Russian wars you are not too old.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Serb

And I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

You don't even allow foreign observers to monitor your elections. Democrats, my ass.

Bush changed it; which was very undemocratic of him and indicative of his disregard for setting a good example.

[RGBVideo]

There has been a demand for "Russian democracy is now destroyed!"-kind of news for the last 8 years or so. BBC news is now dutifully fulfilling that demand by trying to spin routine technical changes into fraud-filled elections. Since there is a demand for such news among the only Americans who seem genuinely interested in the domestic affairs of Russia -- neo-cons who were naïve liberals in the 60s and 70s and are now still living in the early 80s when they woke up -- what really happens will not matter at all.

This is the 7th year in a row when I'm reading how Putin is now destroying democracy and installing himself as a dictator. Yet, parliamentary election rules are still enforced, and they're still much more democratic than they're in most other European countries (I recommend Americans to take to read about the French parliamentary election model as an example). I'm not holding my breath.

[Saras]

Originally posted by GePap
And yet the mayority of Russians would vote to re-elect Putin if they could.

Why are Liberals around the world so utterly incapable of talking in a way that addresses the fears and desires of the masses?

All one hears is preachyness about "values", but your average individual voters cares more about "Do I have a job, can I feed my family, can I be left alone in peace?" than they do the value of a multi-party democracy. That is why demagoges and autocrats with money win democratically all the time, and will continue to in countries were the Liberals are good enough to preach about values but never seemingly good enough to get the benefits through to those who might form some sort of effective middle class.

I don't get it - do you or do you not support curtailing of forming preelection coalitions, jailing of opposition candidates and virtuall monopolisation of broadcast media in the hands of the Government?

[Pekka]

US did screw up with the foreign observers in their election though. That is quite true.

However, as someone who opposes that and also lives outside both Russia and US, it's time for the rest of the world (that is me) to tell you guys that you both suck with elections. You both suck ass. It's like that God hates fags dude and Bin Laden arguing whose ideology is worse. It's like guys, you both suck ass with these election things and yes, you're fighting for the last place outside places like Pakistan and other regions where power is just outright taken by strongmen.

Let's say it one more time and make it 3 times, you both suck at election thingies and you keep pointing at each other and to us arrogant and snobby foreigners it seems quite hilarious indeed.

HA-HA!

There. I said it.

And both use fundamentally the same argument.

US: "We do these things right, you can trust us. Listen buddy, it's just not worth of your effort, we have legitimate problems with these foreigners trying to create a mess by claiming things dind't go OK, it's all political, so we're trying to just kind of... listen, they're the problem, we do it right so trust us. We're just not allowing these agenda having foreigners to put their spin on it."

Russia: "ME STRONG! We can't let these weak little ****ers to come and push their agenda. The time for outside influence is over, they've poisoned us and now they are afraid because we are uniting and we must continue to disregard outside poisoners."

The world seems so scary to both in VERY SPESIFIC ways related to certain time and space. I personally find it odd. Others might call it straight out gangsta and undemocratic. Oh well.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Saras


I don't get it - do you or do you not support curtailing of forming preelection coalitions, jailing of opposition candidates and virtuall monopolisation of broadcast media in the hands of the Government?

banning pre-election coolitions is a technical rule, and has nothing to do with "ending democracy", specially since one can have a democracy without a parlimentary system.

Jailing opposition candidates and an unfairt media are certainly undemocratic, but the fact is that even with an independent media in Russia (a country not known for the trust people give government, now is it?) Putin and his allies would still win. What does the opposition offer other than fear of more Putin rule? (Which a lot of Russians would approve off?)

[GePap]

The things about people's rule (democracy) is that most people would want best a democracy where if in the majority, they got what the majority wanted, aka, an unliberal democracy. One has to convincingly argue to individuals why a Liberal democracy is what they should aim for, and why it is a benefit directly to them - demagogues can easily make the case for illiberal democracy, Liberals seem currently unable to make the countercase.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by GePap

banning pre-election coolitions is a technical rule, and has nothing to do with "ending democracy", specially since one can have a democracy without a parlimentary system.

The ban on pre-election coalitions combines with the increased threshold to enter parliament, to reduce the extent of parliamentary opposition. Its a clever use of technical rules to gradually limit democracy (whether parliamentary or not, some legislative opposition is essential to a functioning democracy in the real world)

Jailing opposition candidates and an unfairt media are certainly undemocratic, but the fact is that even with an independent media in Russia (a country not known for the trust people give government, now is it?) Putin and his allies would still win. What does the opposition offer other than fear of more Putin rule? (Which a lot of Russians would approve off?)

So why does Putin bother with these things? Perhaps he smart enough to realize that he and his clique wont always be so popular (I saw an article saying that United Russia was polling at only about 60%, and thats with $100 oil pumping the Russian economy, and a still live memory of the economic collapse of 1998) and that NOW is the time to implement changes that will help him and them stay in power when his popularity wanes.