Can Russia's Democracy Movement Succeed?

C'mon. Somebody here must have an opinion on this.

Erm.....I'm kinda avoiding reality.

I am aware of anti-Putin as Tsar folk, but I'll need to do,more research before having an informed opinion.

Is your link enough?

OK, Andrew.
I fervently hope the democracy movement succeeds. For the sake of the Russian people.
The Russian government is not exactly behaving in a way that respects citizens' rights at the moment. To put it politely.
Scary recollections of past events.

Maybe not what we understand as democracy, but for the Russians more democracy than they have had over the last century.
It will be diffecult to build up a democratic Russia. People who have never had a democracy for generations will have to learn how to live under/with democracy.
As it is now it seems like many Russians prefer to leave the country if they have any form of education which can be used in the Western countries. If they have money it is tranferred into other countries..
It will be difficult to build up a democracy with lack of educatated people and without prople who could invest in business and work.
It is difficult for small and middlesized privat firms go survive with the corrupt civil servants. They are the ones Putin power is built on and as long as that goes on we cannot expect Putin to change and make reforms.

The link will supply other links. By itself, no, it's not enough.

My own opinion is that a large part of the problem is that the Russians have never, throughout the history of their nation, had anything that even remotely resembles the Western idea of democracy. Never. Rulers rule, whether they are called Czars or Commissars or Tatar/Mongol leaders of the Golden Horde. Historically, that is the story of Russia in a nutshell. That some Russian citizens today are actually gathering the courage to protest this status quo is encouraging and, frankly, astonishing.

I don't believe Putin to be an evil man in any sense. He is simply doing what Russian rulers are supposed to do -- extending his rule through any means possible, by hook or by crook. And it must come as at least a mild shock to him that anyone would criticize this behaviour and take him to task for it. One does not question supreme leaders.

Frankly, I'm encouraged by the demcracy movement in Russia. Do we dare hope for an "Arab Spring" west of the Ural Mountains?

From where I am standing it looks to me like we, the U.S., is becoming more like the Russian government than they are becoming like us. 1 % of the U.S. is controlling our government which are fewer than controlled Russia at the height of communism.

Ahh, but the difference is that in our case a mechanism for change exists. It's called the U.S> Constitution which severely limits the power of any branch of govenment. I agree with you that things right now have reached a pretty pass here in the USA but, potentially at least, it's fixable without the need to resort to violence. The point is that we have a tradition of peaceful changes in government; the Russians have a tradition that the only way government can be changed is by violent overthrow.

I'm just a-settin' back to see what happens.

Like the Supreme Court deciding to peacefully declare corporations to be people? I dont think we can change anything peacefully in the U.S.. Too much money.

I think the main difference between Russia and the Arab Spring is that Putin is allowing things to play out. Most Russians turned a blind eye to corruption, because after the chaos of the Yeltsin years they could see things getting better in terms of security and standard of living. That's not the case any more, and the election was so blatantly rigged that the protesters feel they have no other option.

Putin has deliberately taken a laissez faire response to the protests in the hope it will fizzle out. We won't really know how effective his tactics are until the forthcoming Presidential election.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth in what you say, izzy. You don't see tanks in the streets in Russia or hear threats thereof. Putin, as you say, is letting the protests play themselves out.

There's also the Russian winter, not really a time to be out on the streets protesting.

Rabel is right. The US is a Potemkin village democracy. It is a kleptocracy. The notion that the people, the vast majority of people have any say in how things are actually run is pure nonsense.

Bend over comrade citizen and lube up for the next "election".