Politics and Government of Russia

GarryB wrote:I remember seeing a news report where the government of an Eu country stepped down and was replaced by the person responsible for putting that country in the EU... I think it was Greece but can't remember.

That wouldn't suprise me at all if the people who took over were involved in the bailouts. But as joining the EU was likely somebody's platform, or part of it, if their party took over I still don't necessarily see anything nefarious about it. Hell, you even get Eurosceptics who want to disband the EU elected to the European Parliament. I should try running on the "I want to disband Congress" platform and see what happens

GarryB wrote:And BTW hmmm more than two US candidates but anyone outside the two major parties is largely unknown because the major media outlets ignore them? Where have I heard about that before?....

They don't get ignored, they're on TV here all the time. They just can't get elected President as they fail to win electoral college votes because they don't ever win a given state. They do start to get less coverage as they demonstrate that they have no chance of getting elected. This isn't anything wrong with the system, either, it's something wrong with us, the voters. Congress has had an approval rating south of 25% for a whole long time now, yet historically speaking 80-85% of incumbent Congressmen will get re-elected. Nobody cares. It's far easier to just vote the party line for whatever reason rather than actually, holy crap, educate yourself about the issues and make an informed decision. And if people did that, maybe the results would still be the same, who knows. This does all dovetail into a separate argument for terms limits in Congress, but I digress.

GarryB wrote:So really all Russia needs is one more powerful political party to split the vote and give the morons at the bottom a better chance of getting seats... is that really how democracy should work?

What? All I was saying is that if United Russia gets around 60% of the votes in the Duma elections, then it isn't a shock to expect that the people might just vote United Russia when the Presidential elections roll around. OSCE is trying to claim a rigged election, I'm trying to explain that no, not necessarily, just look at the voting records. Same thing happens here, you get voters who always vote for one particular party regardless, or voting districts that vote predominately one party or the other for various elections.

There's no reason for Russia to change anything as far as I'm concerned, I wasn't saying that. Their proportional representation system gives the most power to the party with the most votes, but gives power to any party with over 7% of the vote. If there's 100 seats (there's not but this makes the math easier), say UR gets 65% of the vote, the Communist Party gets 10%, the Liberal Democrats get 10%, and three fringe parties get 7%, 7%, and 1%. The 1% party gets no Duma seats, the rest are broken down according to what relative percentage of the votes they got. What this does is it forces UR to theoretically govern by coalition, as they no logner have a constitutional majority to govern unopposed in the Duma. Coalitions aren't bad, they bring mroe ideas to the table and because you have to cooperate with someone you can make more progress. Our two party system over here basically ensures that we never really fix anything and that the two parties spend most of their effort complaining about each other. If we had a PR system of electing Congress over here things might be improved as far as progress is concerned. We're about the only place I can think of with a two-party dominated system, and if you ask me it clearly isn't working all that well anymore.

GarryB wrote:If you are studying the EU Sean then you will know better than most that there are plenty of different types of democracy and criticising Russias' implementation is the height of hypocrisy...

Like I said, I wasn't being remotely critical. I was just relating the presidential results to the voting trends from the 2011 Duma elections, illustrating to any OCSE genius reading this that hey, UR apparently had support, and enough of it to likely get Putin elected. What, does OCSE think that UR did something retarded in the brief time the new Duma was in office prior to the Presidential election, retarded enough to erode away all of that support?

GarryB wrote:US elections take about a year, while India seems to get itself sorted in a month or so.

Our actual elections take about 2 and a half months from election day in November to inauguration in January. The parties just like to draw out the whole primary process and campaigning process as long as possible. Which is really hilarious, as 80-85% of people in Congress are going to be re-elected regardless. All of that money spent when you know the results are pretty much in the bag already.

But as joining the EU was likely somebody's platform, or part of it, if their party took over I still don't necessarily see anything nefarious about it.

So an organisation that has countries within it with unelected governments in control of them has the right to claim Putins outright popularity made the Russian elections unfair and undemocratic???

So when there are money problems you can just skip on giving the people their right to vote, but there are special new rules for Russias elections where there has to be competition or it doesn't count as real democracy?

Bush jnr got his second term because the alternative was not worthy and Bill Clinton got a second term for exactly the same reason. Tony Bliar in the UK got voted back in because the alternative was crap, Howard in Australia got back in because the alternative was rubbish, Helene Clarke here in New Zealand stayed in power because the alternative was rubbish... I dare say unless the Republicans wake up and realise their only chance of winning would be Ron Paul then Obama will probably get a second term too... not because they are any good, but because the alternative is rubbish.

Putin is not rubbish and I would certainly vote for him.

(BTW regarding my opinion of Ron Paul, he would be the best candidate for the republicans because I think he is the only republican that democrats will vote for. That means if given a choice between voting for Ron Paul or Obama that all republicans will choose to NOT vote for Obama, and a lot of disheartened democrats will want to not vote for Obama. I think Paul will win on the punnishment vote... they wont vote for him because they love him, they will vote for him to punnish obama for obamas failure to do what he promised.

Of course it all really doesn't matter because unless the winner can control congress then they wont be able to push anything through to become law or to actually change.

Far fewer than I expected. Such law had to be implemented.

My favorite Rogozin, is getting his very own luxo-Tigr!



lol.

WoW lucky man.

Hope some days he replaces Putin as President   

Austin wrote:WoW lucky man.

Hope some days he replaces Putin as President   

Why would you wish such a terrible thing on Russia ?

TR1 wrote:

Austin wrote:WoW lucky man.

Hope some days he replaces Putin as President   

Why would you wish such a terrible thing on Russia ?

Why whats wrong ....he would be better than Medvedev

Rogozin is a moron, that's the issue.

Medvedev is Putin's man in any case, no difference who was up there.

I think Putin and the rest of them are scum, but Rogozin's issue is not that he is a thief (at least doesn't appear to be). He is just a completely simpleton.

I think Putin and the rest of them are scum wrote:

So the best leader since over a century for Russia and you think he is scum?

Werewolf wrote:

So the best leader since over a century for Russia and you think he is scum?

Yes well Russia hasn't had a good leader in the past 100 years, so it is not exactly a big achievement.

Don't you think Shoigu could be also good president?

TR1 wrote:

Werewolf wrote:

So the best leader since over a century for Russia and you think he is scum?

Yes well Russia hasn't had a good leader in the past 100 years, so it is not exactly a big achievement.

Putin is the best president you had since Peter the great.So whats your problem,the guy saved Russia from Yugoslavian scenario,just for that you should respect him.

Djoka wrote:

TR1 wrote:

Werewolf wrote:

So the best leader since over a century for Russia and you think he is scum?

Yes well Russia hasn't had a good leader in the past 100 years, so it is not exactly a big achievement.

Putin is the best president you had since Peter the great.So whats your problem,the guy saved Russia from Yugoslavian scenario,just for that you should respect him.

It doesn't work.
Nobody on this forum or even in this world can change his mind...

If Putin is scum I will never clean my pool again.

Scum floats to the top, but so does cream.

TR-1 can complain about Putin all he wants but unless he can come up with an alternative it is all just sour grapes.

I think Putin is refreshing in a politician... not perfect... but unusually straight and honest at a time when most politicians are particularly bad at being truthful.

Putin shows Hilary is wrong when she claims the US needs to be able to lie.

The reality is they don't have to lie they just need to be able to not talk about everything openly.

Putin is indeed a scum, just like 95 percent (if not more) of world's politicians.

xeno wrote:

Djoka wrote:

TR1 wrote:

Werewolf wrote:

So the best leader since over a century for Russia and you think he is scum?

Yes well Russia hasn't had a good leader in the past 100 years, so it is not exactly a big achievement.

Putin is the best president you had since Peter the great.So whats your problem,the guy saved Russia from Yugoslavian scenario,just for that you should respect him.

It doesn't work.
Nobody on this forum or even in this world can change his mind...

Of course you wont, since the comparison to Yugoslavia is just bananas, and Putin didn't save me or Russia from jack diddly squat.

He did save Russia from being billions richer though . What a pal!

I really liked General Lebed in the 90s,too bad the ministry of the interior killed his potential rise to power.Funny how aircraft crashes have a way of thinning the Russian political sphere.

Lebed was a brick. A soldier through and though.

http://www.bogema-auto.ru/cars/Tiger.php

Inside Rogozin's Tigr. Holy shit lol.

TR1 wrote:Lebed was a brick. A soldier through and though.

And a admirer of Pinochet, which leads me to believe he was a Bonapartist. Some fun facts about Pinochet: He was a puppet of the CIA and NATO sphere of intelligence circles of influence, and a fascist dictator on the model of Mussolini, Salazar, Franco, P.W. Botha. Pinochet and his fellow travelers in Chile aided in the destruction, partition, and balkanization of one of Russia's main allies (Yugoslavia) by shipping hundreds of tons of weapons illegally to the Croatian army and disguised it and made it look like humanitarian aid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16660221

http://www.france24.com/en/20130613-argentina-menem-prison-arms-trafficking/

That wasn't the only time the Pentagon used proxies to cause havoc in Yugoslavia, they used Islamic fundamentalists to arm Bosnian separatists:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/22/warcrimes.comment

...This begs the question, why would any self-proclaimed "Russian Nationalist" admire an enemy of Russia like Agusto Pinochet?

TR1 wrote:http://www.bogema-auto.ru/cars/Tiger.php

Inside Rogozin's Tigr. Holy shit lol.

Hmmm.... the only thing missing is a (007 style) mini-fridge.  

The only objective way to judge a politician is to evaluate the societal metrics during their reign in power. Now, this is inherently unfair because many of the events that influence success are external to their control, but in regards to Putin here goes:

1. The average wage in Russia during Putin' term increased roughly 6 times
2. Russia GDP increased roughly 5 times
3. Russia went from 100% debt/GDP and default in 1996 to roughly 15% debt/GDP today net of a $90 billion reserve fund
4. Russian demographics although still bad improved in terms of birth rates per fertile women by about 30%
5. Russian measures of longevity/infant mortality all improved
6. Russia's military went from procuring virtually no new weapons to the results we have seen this year

A second way to measure a politicians success is to look at critical moments and how he responded. The most critical moment in Putin's career was the Georgian attack on South Ossetia. This was a gut test which Sakashvilli undertook with the full support and understanding of political elements in the USA. It was designed to show Russia (and Putin personally) as a defanged, impotent, paper tiger. Didn't quite work out that way.

Another way to judge a politician is to view him relative to his peers: Was Putin better or worse for Russia or the USSR than Yeltsin ? Gorbachev ? Brezhnev ?

Let me put it this way, a New York court just ordered a subsidiary of Rosneft to pay $186MM in damages relative to Yukos. There is a $100 billion lawsuit filed by Nevzlin under a similar legal theory ! (That would fund, or defund actually, the entire PAK FA, Sam 500, Sam 400, and Armata programs all put together.) Now forget the perversity of suing for damages for a company you stole from the Russian public that, coupled with other acts of corruption and theft, left a society deprived of basic wages and services and contributed to a soft genocide in the 1990s. How can a New York court have legal authority in Russia ? Yeltsin signed such a treaty in 1991 (never ratified by the Duma) ceding Russian sovereignty to an international arbitration tribunal. Somehow I doubt our terrible Mr. Putin would sign such a treaty.

calripson wrote:The only objective way to judge a politician is to evaluate the societal metrics during their reign in power. Now, this is inherently unfair because many of the events that influence success are external to their control, but in regards to Putin here goes:

1. The average wage in Russia during Putin' term increased roughly 6 times
2. Russia GDP increased  roughly 5 times
3. Russia went from 100% debt/GDP and default in 1996 to roughly 15% debt/GDP today net of a $90 billion reserve fund
4. Russian demographics although still bad improved in terms of birth rates per fertile women by about 30%
5. Russian measures of longevity/infant mortality all improved
6. Russia's military went from procuring virtually no new weapons to the results we have seen this year

A second way to measure a politicians success is to look at critical moments and how he responded. The most critical moment in Putin's career was the Georgian attack on South Ossetia. This was a gut test which Sakashvilli undertook with the full support and understanding of political elements in the USA. It was designed to show Russia (and Putin personally) as a defanged, impotent, paper tiger. Didn't quite work out that way.

Another way to judge a politician is to view him relative to his peers: Was Putin better or worse for Russia or the USSR than Yeltsin ? Gorbachev ? Brezhnev ?

Let me put it this way, a New York court just ordered a subsidiary of Rosneft to pay $186MM in damages relative to Yukos. There is a $100 billion lawsuit filed by Nevzlin under a similar legal theory ! (That would fund, or defund actually, the entire PAK FA, Sam 500, Sam 400, and Armata programs all put together.)  Now forget the perversity of suing for damages for a company you stole from the Russian public that, coupled with other acts of corruption and theft, left a society deprived of basic wages and services and contributed to a soft genocide in the 1990s. How can a New York court have legal authority in Russia ? Yeltsin signed such a treaty in 1991 (never ratified by the Duma) ceding Russian sovereignty to an international arbitration tribunal. Somehow I doubt our terrible Mr. Putin would sign such a treaty.

Let's not forget the violent drunk Boris Yeltsin fired tank rounds in to his parliament, and looted and raped the soviet economy, and was called an advocate of freedom, democracy, and justice by the west for doing so. Putin never fired tank shells in to a govt. building, but the west calls him a dictator for forcing billionaires to pay their past-due taxes that they owe lol!