shopping cart CART ITEMS: -
| CHECKOUT
Conferences Series Events
RELIGION   |   GAMING   |   FILM   |   FASHION   |   SEX   |   PHILOSOPHY   |   EDUCATION   |   HISTORY   |   ARTS   |   MUSIC   |   TRAVEL   |   PHOTOGRAPHY

Russia's Power Transfer Crises
Watch Full Program
More from this partner:

0
Likes
0
Dislikes
RATE
941 Views

  • Info
  • Bio
  • Chapters
  • Preview
  • Download
  • More
Please or register to post a comment.

rocketdog Avatar
rocketdog
Posts: 211
Posted: 02.27.07, 04:25 PM
Against my better judgement, as I'm getting a little tired of being flamed over this, I'd like to add an amendum to my last post that I'm certainly not endorsing a_tendency's implication that conditions for U.S. investigative reporters are in any way comparable to those of their counterparts in Russia, a suggestion I find as ridiculous as I do offensive. For her courageous attempts to expose the crimes of Putin and the organizations who support him, Politkovskaya lived in constant fear for her life, as do many of her contemporaries today. That's what it's like to be in the political opposition in Russia. Judges, activists, liberal politicians -- all suffer from the everyday threat of prison or worse for expressing their opposition to the government. The "war on terror" notwithstanding, to suggest that an investigative reporter in the United States would realistically have any such concerns is absolute nonsense. Sy Hersh may have encountered legal opposition from the government for his expose of Abu Ghraib, but do you honestly think at any time he was in danger of being killed by "friends" of the Bush Administration over his reporting? What are you going to tell me next, that Molly Ivins was finally taken out by the CIA over a decade after she first called Bush a "Shrub?" That Paul Wellstone was offed by the Republicans in 2002 for speaking out against the Patriot Act?

I sense that we may agree over many aspects of Bush's conduct of the war on terrorism...but dude, if that's truly the way you see life in this country, you have absolutely lost touch with reality. You're not ignorant, you're just nuts.
Permalink
rocketdog Avatar
rocketdog
Posts: 211
Posted: 02.26.07, 03:19 PM
I'm not disagreeing with you on the "war on terror" etc.; my point, since it has apparently been missed yet again, is that...oh, forget it. I'm just going to repost what I wrote above:

Quote:
Yes, there is blood on our hands. We are engaging in criminal actions over the so-called war on terrorism that need to be stopped. But my point is that in the U.S. we have the tools as citizens to vocalize these issues and do something about them. The Russians don't. It's a credit to our society that we're able to do that.
As hopeless things can seem, we DO have the ability to challenge the government to affect institutitional change. Look at last summer's Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the detainee tribunals that had been going on since 9/11. See what happened there? Our government listened to its critics and checked its own power. Changes can happen slowly, but they do happen. Do you think a case like that would have any chance of going through in Russia? That their hopelessly corrupt legal system might stand up and say something like, "Hey Putin, you need to treat the Chechens like human beings once in a while"?

This debate is crazy. You're blinded by your own ideology if you think there's a legitimate comparison here.
Permalink
a_tendency_to_care Avatar
a_tendency_to_care
Posts: 22
Posted: 02.26.07, 02:42 PM
Rocketdog: it seems that you are troubled by the 'style' and manner of the brutality
"Can you imagine what would happen if reporters at the Nation or the American Prospect were regularly taken down in contract-style killings, and the government simply shrugged and looked the other way?"

Your point being that that the Russian government is barbarically honest about their killing of political dissidents and in the the U.S. we do our best to disguise it through 2 or 3 degrees of institutional separation? Ask the Canadian and German citizens whom BRICEHOBBS referred to whether or not they have any chance of justice in the US Courts. The ignorance and naivite which you accuse is yours, sir.
Permalink
rocketdog Avatar
rocketdog
Posts: 211
Posted: 02.26.07, 01:33 PM
Look, I'm certainly no conservative nationalist, but you guys are still blowing my mind here. Your points are vaild, Brice, but you seem to be ignorant of just how bad things are in Russia. Can you imagine what would happen if reporters at the Nation or the American Prospect were regularly taken down in contract-style killings, and the government simply shrugged and looked the other way? That's the equivalent parallel for what happened to Politkovskaya. You're honestly implying that kind of thing happens here? Right now, in this society? You're not exaggerating your case, maybe just a little bit?

Yes, there is blood on our hands. We are engaging in criminal actions over the so-called war on terrorism that need to be stopped. But my point is that in the U.S. we have the tools as citizens to vocalize these issues and do something about them. The Russians don't. It's a credit to our society that we're able to do that. Have you been so obsessed with the bad that we've done as a country that you've forgotten completely about the good?
Permalink
BRICEHOBBS Avatar
BRICEHOBBS
Posts: 7
Posted: 02.26.07, 12:15 PM
"Our government doesn't look the other way when the mafia takes out contract killings on judges, reporters, and social activists." —Rocketdog

Oh I do wish things were as rosey as you suggest. The CIA, the FBI and the agents they hire repeatedly do these deeds you mention at home and abroad. There is no need to hire the mafia.

Government policy is to redefine terrorism and torture as something the other side does while committing horrific acts (there are those that are known versus those that will never be told) ourselves that I will assume I can simply reference here for a well read commentator such as yourself: black sites/extraordinary rendition(see recent case of an innocent German man tortured by the CIA ), water-boarding, feces and Botero drawings, Guantanamo, a miltary raping of a 14 year-old Iraqi child, Abu-Ghraib (the sadist scene straight out of a Heironymous Bosch painting). I don't have to go on, do I?

Chechnya is Russia's psychological enemy used to whip up support for dictatorial control. Keeping a populus afraid of the Terrorist in our mind is Bush's version of this. Parallel realities don't have to be as literal as you suggest to be observed and to be true.
Permalink
rocketdog Avatar
rocketdog
Posts: 211
Posted: 02.26.07, 12:09 PM
Woah there...I was totally with you right up until your last sentence. I agree with you about Russia's woeful current state, and I found Politkovskaya's death, tragic as it was, to be hardly surprising. (By the way, anyone with any sort of interest at all in this topic absolutely has to read Politkovskaya's final book, Putin's Russia. It's as well written as it is shocking.) But your implied comparison of the criminal oligarchy that runs Russia to that of the Bush Administration is hyperbole in the extreme. I'm no fan of Bush myself, but drawing broad parallels between these two governments dramatically misrepresents both of them. To be totally frank, Russia's current condition should serve to bring us all down to earth a bit and remind us of how good we've really got it and how far we've come as an effective democracy. We've still got an effective court system, civil rights, and a free press, for example -- even if it looks like they're occasionally under attack. Our government doesn't look the other way when the mafia takes out contract killings on judges, reporters, and social activists. We actually have environmental legislation, and when it isn't upheld, we as citizens can take the government to task for it. Russia has none of this, and no hope for any of it in the immediate future. Do you need me to go on?

Look...in two years, Bush will be gone. He's barely there right now. But Russia's criminals aren't going anywhere. And that's a real tragedy.
Permalink
a_tendency_to_care Avatar
a_tendency_to_care
Posts: 22
Posted: 02.26.07, 12:14 AM
As someone who has lived in Russia I was pleased to find this article in today's ny times
because it rings true to both my experience and understanding of everyday Russian social and political realities.

A single sentence synopsis might read something like:
Many voting Russian citizens value stability in their government and will trade it for the West's notion of freedom of choice and freedom of expression. Futility and cynicism are no strangers to Russian intellectuals when considering their leaders. I recently, asked a Russian friend of mine about the recent contract killing of Anna Politkovskaya (the Russian journalist who was not afraid to print the truth about Putin and the war in Chechnya) and he said it was well understood by the Moscow/St. Petersburg intelligentsia that this was done in service to Putin with absolutely no hope of justice or even an investigation. This is today's Russia: powerful because of energy and ruthless toward it's enemies. Hmmm that sounds too familiar.
Permalink
Advertisement
NO ADS + DOWNLOADS + HQ VIEWING
UPGRADE TO FORA.tv PLUS
JOIN NOW >>

Recommended

William Cohen William Cohen
01:04:35 min | 2,390 Views
Carly Fiorina: Tough Choices Carly Fiorina: Tough Choices
00:58:19 min | 17,074 Views
Overcoming Life's Disappointments Overcoming Life's Disappointments
01:01:36 min | 18,885 Views
The Silent Pulse The Silent Pulse
01:01:10 min | 7,325 Views
Lowell Bergman and Steve Talbot Lowell Bergman and Steve Talbot
01:03:17 min | 1,630 Views

Get Our Free Newsletter

Advertisement


LAW  |   ECONOMY  |   STEVE JOBS  |   INVESTING  |   MARKETING  |   ENTREPRENEURSHIP  |   RECOVERY  |   ECONOMIC POLICY  |   GLOBALIZATION  |   EMERGING MARKETS
CLIMATE CHANGE  |   ENERGY  |   SUSTAINABILITY  |   ENVIRONMENT  |   TRANSPORTATION  |   POLICY  |   BUILDINGS
OCCUPY WALL STREET  |   ELECTION 2012  |   MUSLIM WORLD  |   HEALTHCARE  |   SOCIAL ISSUES  |   FOREIGN POLICY  |   TERRORISM  |   CAPITOL HILL
SPACE  |   EVOLUTION  |   PHYSICS  |   SOCIAL SCIENCES  |   NATURAL SCIENCES  |   DNA  |   PSYCHOLOGY  |   BIOTECH  |   MEDICINE  |   ANTHROPOLOGY  |   ASTRONOMY
INTERNET  |   NEW MEDIA  |   START-UPS  |   PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY  |   WIRELESS  |   COMPUTING  |   ENGINEERING  |   CEOS
RELIGION  |   GAMING  |   FILM  |   FASHION  |   SEX  |   PHILOSOPHY  |   EDUCATION  |   HISTORY  |   ARTS  |   MUSIC  |   TRAVEL  |   PHOTOGRAPHY
Watch Now
Watch Now