Russian Opposition Figure Thinks Anti-Putin Movement Has Faltered 144
New submitter FilatovEV writes "Interview with Russian liberal opposition politician Vladimir Milov taken by Los Angeles Times reveals a different side of the Western narrative about Russia."
From the article: "All they have for a plan is a very simple formula: Let's lead a million people out into the streets, and that will scare the hell out of Putin. He will run away, and we will grab power. But even if they get a sufficient number of people out in the street, they don't know what to do next. All they can do is chant their old anti-Putin incantations instead of offering a program of action. "
yeah and? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ever see the movie Network?
You have to get mad first...
Re:yeah and? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would like to add a few points:
-fear of what happened after "perestroyka" in a name of democracy (USSR collapse, local wars, hyperinflation, poverty, corruption to name a few)
-those opposition leaders are no better than guys in power - they want to get to the feeder, or the a fed from US, or they are fed by current powers to show how crazy opposition is.
-real democracy currently works only in a few small European countries with very educated (on average) population. In Russia fair elections and free (means controlled by big businesses) media will result in Special Olympics game of shit-throwing, so every candidate will be in deep shit and the one who will promise more free money to old people and throw more quality shit on the opponents will win.
Some of the people who were on the streets in Russia lately do not want to change Putin for somebody, just want him to behave in a manner expected from elected president and not get too self confident
I'm Russian living abroad for long time, I get my information from different sources. I do not know this "opposition leader" who gave this interview, do not understand why his opinion matters, especially to the nerds.
Re:Sounds like OWS (Score:4, Interesting)
The vaguer message of Occupy was that the Democratic Party in the US has utterly ignored the liberals in their base in an effort to pander to Wall St and the right wing. And why should people like Obama do that, when all they need to do to get their votes is scare the bejeesus out of them by threatening them with the prospect of President Romney?
I heard Amy Goodman of Democracy Now give a good answer to that, when she introduced Ralph Nader in the 2000 election. The Republican Party has been moving further and further to the right. The Democratic Party has been moving further to the right to match them. On domestic policy, the Democratic Party is further to the right now than Richard Nixon (don't forget, Nixon's secretary of HEW was Pat Moynihan). If we continue to vote for the Democratic Party, they will continue to move to the right until there's no meaningful difference between them. We have to vote for third party candidates to tell the Democrats that they can't take us for granted.
Since that time, Obama gave us a health care plan that was literally written by the Heritage Foundation. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, told progressives that they were "fucking retarded" for wanting the single payer system Obama promised us. He appointed Wall Street financiers to run his White House. They tossed Acorn under the bus, which was one of the best campaign organizing tools they had.
What I don't understand is why the Democrats didn't learn from 2000 that if you tell the left wing of your party to go fuck themselves, you can lose an election. Maybe it's like training a mule -- you have to hit them on the head with a sledgehammer -- again.
I think it's like a strike. You don't want to go on strike, you don't want to lose weeks or months of salary, you don't want to take a chance on having your employer move to China. But if we hadn't gone on strike over the last 100 years, we would be making Chinese wages right now, and if we never go on strike, we will be making Chinese wages.
Somebody tell the Democrats. If you tell us to fuck off one more time, we'll fuck up your election, just like we did in 1968 and in 2000.