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Put Not Your Trust in Putin

There is a cadre of American conservatives who just LURVE them some Putin, because he's a big tough guy who put that Kenyan Obama in his place.

Anyone with a brain realizes he's a dangerous, dangerous man.
 
There is a cadre of American conservatives who just LURVE them some Putin, because he's a big tough guy who put that Kenyan Obama in his place.

Anyone with a brain realizes he's a dangerous, dangerous man.

Yea they like that quality in him.... not very much of the others though
 
Russia murdered British citizen Alexander Litvinenko in London says EDWARD LUCAS | Daily Mail Online

Anyone in the democratic West who thinks Putin is their friend is mistaken.

I am interested that that was made public. No doubt that Putin probably did give a nod. But that it was leveled at the head of an important international player officially by an other important player? I do not know the UK judicial system very well, but that sounds like either a very good system or a very dubious one.
 
I am interested that that was made public. No doubt that Putin probably did give a nod. But that it was leveled at the head of an important international player officially by an other important player? I do not know the UK judicial system very well, but that sounds like either a very good system or a very dubious one.

This is the result of a public enquiry headed by a retired High Court judge, appointed by the government. So not actually part of the judicial system. The enquiry took evidence from the security services among other. It is reported that US intercepts of Russian communications were made available to them.

If Litvinenko's widow now sues the Russian government we will then see the English judicial system in action. (Btw English, not UK, as Scotland has its own judiciary and system).
 
Well duuuh!

Of course one should not put trust in Putin!
 
Yea they like that quality in him.... not very much of the others though

What quality of Putin's is so admirable? He's a dictator. And not in the "OMG OBAMA MADE AN EXECUTIVE ORDER" type of "dictator" ... like, an actual dictator.
 
Well duuuh!

Of course one should not put trust in Putin!

I can't tell you how many conservatives I've seen here praise Putin if they thought it was a move against Obama.
 
Russia murdered British citizen Alexander Litvinenko in London says EDWARD LUCAS | Daily Mail Online

Anyone in the democratic West who thinks Putin is their friend is mistaken.

I'm not a fan of Putin, but if he killed a spy - so what? I mean, it's not like the US (and other countries) don't kill their enemies.

Putin, if guilty (and remember, it's all speculation so far) used radioactive poison. That is embarrassing, isn't it? Visions of Socrates are dancing around.

If only Putin had today's drone technology back then he could have zoomed right in and shot the bastige from a safe distance.

With the long history of CIA involvement in foreign assassinations, the killing of a spy pales in comparison.

The CIA has Attempted to Assassinate 50 Foreign Leaders Including Chavez | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization
 
The Litvinenko Report (pdf format)



Poisoning Alexander Litvinenko: The Moment Russia Went Fully Rogue


Alexander Litvinenko and the Banality of Evil in Putin’s Russia - The New York Times


Russia dismisses Britain's Litvinenko inquiry as 'joke'


Putin's disturbing message for the west: your rules don't apply

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Grave of the murdered Alexander Litvinenko in London
 
I'm not a fan of Putin, but if he killed a spy - so what? I mean, it's not like the US (and other countries) don't kill their enemies.

Putin, if guilty (and remember, it's all speculation so far) used radioactive poison. That is embarrassing, isn't it? Visions of Socrates are dancing around.

If only Putin had today's drone technology back then he could have zoomed right in and shot the bastige from a safe distance.

With the long history of CIA involvement in foreign assassinations, the killing of a spy pales in comparison.

The CIA has Attempted to Assassinate 50 Foreign Leaders Including Chavez | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Litvinenko was not a 'spy'. He was a naturalised British citizen working, quite legitimately, in the UK, for the Secret Intelligence Service.

If the CIA really had "Attempted to assassinate 50 foreign leaders" there would be 50 corpses. There aren't. So endless repetitions of this silly lie are merely tedious. Oh - and the 600 attempts on the life of Castro according to this anti American site, well at least I got a laugh out of it.
 
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What quality of Putin's is so admirable? He's a dictator. And not in the "OMG OBAMA MADE AN EXECUTIVE ORDER" type of "dictator" ... like, an actual dictator.

I think some people want a more masculine leader/one that is diplomatically strong....the mountain that doesn't bow to the wind.... that's it... you don't need to dig any deeper xD You can respect your enemies while at the same time despising them...
 
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I can't tell you how many conservatives I've seen here praise Putin if they thought it was a move against Obama.

I interpret that praise as spite against their democrat President and not invested trust in Putin necessarily. But should push comes to shove them same Republicans would turn ugly faster than Putin can say "Прости"
 
Litvinenko was not a 'spy'. He was a naturalised British citizen working, quite legitimately, in the UK, for the Secret Intelligence Service.

Right, he had previously served in Russia's secret service and he used the information he gleaned there to help the Brits. That pretty much fits the description of a spy. He'd been arrested in Russia and was not to leave that country when he jumped ship and was granted asylum by the Brits. He shared Russian secrets - that's a no-no.

If the CIA really had "Attempted to assassinate 50 foreign leaders" there would be 50 corpses. There aren't. So endless repetitions of this silly lie are merely tedious. Oh - and the 600 attempts on the life of Castro according to this anti American site, well at least I got a laugh out of it.

Ah, the CIA and their lily-white hands. :roll:

If Putin ordered the hit - he's far from the only leader to do that type of thing.

Riddle me this - how is Putin ordering the hit on Litvinenko any different from Obama ordering the hit on Anwar al-Awlaki?
 
Putin is not a dictator, but neither is he a democrat.

The world is full of countries whose political systems are in between outright dictatorships, as in North Korea, and pure democracies which have reached the height of perfection, as in the United States.

Russia is one of these, and so is Iran.

Is our good ally Singapore a dictatorship? They pretty regularly jail their outspoken dissidents, yet there is an opposition party -- the Workers Party -- which sometimes beats the long-time ruling party in elections, although not on a national level.

Even dictatorships spread out along a spectrum with respect to how much dissent they tolerate. China today is far freer than it was under Mao, and Russia is far freer than it was under Communism.

Actually, being a notional 'democracy' and officially tolerating dissenting voices can sometimes be worse than living in an outright dictatorship. In Latin America, many countries were technically 'democracies', but whenever an election put a government in power that the local military and the American government didn't like, the military would overthrow it, and murder a few thousand Reds or people who looked like they might be Reds.

Even today, dissenters or journalists who ask too many questions are likely to get a visit from a death squad in some democratic Latin American countries. Cuba is a dictatorship, but you're not going to end up in an unmarked grave in Cuba if you're a vocal critic of the government. Mexico is a democracy, but if you're an outspoken critic of the powers that be, you'd better have a good life insurance policy for your heirs.

Stop thinking in binary terms. And start thinking dialectically, comrades.

Look at (1) contradictions, and (2) change, driven by economic forces.

All of these countries have contradictory elements in their political arrangements and in their surrounding culture, and all of them are undergoing deep social changes, which are only sporadically reflected in their political superstructures.

The road to progress is to support those social changes, driven first of all by economics. Turning backward, illiterate, superstitious peasants into urban factory (ie. sweatshop) workers, and turning their children into educated office workers, is going to undermine the social basis for dictatorship. This won't happen overnight.

That's why globalization is good.
 
Put Not Your Trust in Putin

another violent idiot who should be ignored as we innovate past him and all of the other idiots while raising our standard of living.
 
Putin is not a dictator, but neither is he a democrat.
Putin is indeed a (cloaked) dictator.

His United Russia party has iron-tight control over Russia's two legislative houses. Putin appoints governors, LEO officials, military officials, diplomats, Central Russia Bank president, and nominates judges.

Putin's political/legislative/military/security/LEO regime is the sole possessor of power in the Russian Federation.
 
Putin is not a dictator, but neither is he a democrat.

The world is full of countries whose political systems are in between outright dictatorships, as in North Korea, and pure democracies which have reached the height of perfection, as in the United States.

The US is a constitutional republic, based on federalism -- not a pure democracy. Thank goodness for that.
 
This is the result of a public enquiry headed by a retired High Court judge, appointed by the government. So not actually part of the judicial system. The enquiry took evidence from the security services among other. It is reported that US intercepts of Russian communications were made available to them.

If Litvinenko's widow now sues the Russian government we will then see the English judicial system in action. (Btw English, not UK, as Scotland has its own judiciary and system).

Oh. My intuition says the report is good and Putin is as bad as they say.
 
The US is a constitutional republic, based on federalism -- not a pure democracy. Thank goodness for that.

What would a pure democracy look like? Every modern state, even small ones like Iceland, is complex and can only be administered if a lot of decision taking power is delegated to certain people. It seems to me to be impossible for every decision to be taken collectively.
 
The semantically-meaningless "democracy vs republic" confusion goes back to the John Birch Society of the late 1950s. It's a meme that is easily memorized, contains some truth, and relieves those who like to repeat it endlessly of the burden of further thought.

As our Swedish friend notes, it would be, as a practical mater, impossible to run a society as a pure 'democracy', even if this gave us the best outcomes, which it wouldn't. So every single country that could be counted as 'democratic', without exception, is a 'representative democracy', with various (possibly only notional) limitations on what the elected representatives may do, enshrined in a 'constitution' or 'organic laws'.

It's a variant of the argument against referenda, and was best made by Edmund Burke about 250 years ago, in his 'Speech to the Electors of Bristol'. (If you go to that link, skip down to part 4.1.20 and read from there.)
 
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