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Forums - Politics - Miracle or not, Putin on course to win in Russia

Kasz216 on 05 March 2012
spurgeonryan said:
I think the problem is that all the ass holes are the sweet talkers with all the money. I think it would be nice to have some fresh eyes and thoughts in the whitehouse.

I want to use baseballs wild card as an example. Even if it is not very good. Even the teams that have no chance have an actual chance bywinning the wild card. Smaller politicians from other smaller parties really have no chance. So we always seem to get republicans vs demorats and things only get done with a bunch of compr0mise and wasted time. Not sure if anything would change with a new face, but it would be nice. Hope that made some sense. I struggle with political discussion even though I enjoy it.


Money follows popularity though.  I mean, look at how much money Herman Cain got after he became popular, but before people found out he was an asshole. (In regards to his personal life.)

Before that he didn't really have any poltical expierence outside of working for the Fed.

I think the real problem in American politics is most people don't want to think that hard about who they are voting for.

Easier to pick a party and ride it.



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Acevil on 05 March 2012
Kasz216 said:
Also, America has a democracy. Nothing in that article suggests it doesn't.

Americans just tend to vote for assholes.


I sort of dislike American Democracy, because really you have only two options dumb and dumber, and where the % of votes don't seem to matter. 



 

Kasz216 on 05 March 2012
Acevil said:
Kasz216 said:
Also, America has a democracy. Nothing in that article suggests it doesn't.

Americans just tend to vote for assholes.


I sort of dislike American Democracy, because really you have only two options dumb and dumber, and where the % of votes don't seem to matter. 

It's not optimal but it's the only thing that makes sense in a country so freakin big.

A propotional system while appealing at the outset would cause all kinds of problems that would either lead to smaller "states" getting ignored/screwed & rural areas getting or we'd end up with a giant confederation of parties far bigger then most countries.



Acevil on 05 March 2012
Kasz216 said:
Acevil said:
Kasz216 said:
Also, America has a democracy. Nothing in that article suggests it doesn't.

Americans just tend to vote for assholes.


I sort of dislike American Democracy, because really you have only two options dumb and dumber, and where the % of votes don't seem to matter. 

It's not optimal but it's the only thing that makes sense in a country so freakin big.

A propotional system while appealing at the outset would cause all kinds of problems that would either lead to smaller "states" getting ignored/screwed & rural areas getting or we'd end up with a giant confederation of parties far bigger then most countries.

But at the same time, wouldn't areas of high population strength be annoyed by such a system, namely if a country uses federal measures on the whole nation. 



 

bouzane on 05 March 2012
Kasz216 said:
Also, America has a democracy. Nothing in that article suggests it doesn't.

Americans just tend to vote for assholes.


Corporate lobbying grossly undermines the entire American democratic process though :(



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lordmandeep on 05 March 2012

"and where the % of votes don't seem to matter. "

In Canada and Britain it is sort of the same.

You can get 10% of the vote and get 54 out of 300 seats or get 16% of the vote and get only 2%.
You can get 30% of the vote and get 0 Seats as well in a certain region lol...



justinian on 05 March 2012
Kasz216 said:
justinian said:
mai said:
Kasz216 said:
bouzane said:

''The guy before him was Boris Yeltsen.  Putin I believe is more popular, though it's not that much of a differnece since they're essentially two peas in a pod.''

WHAT?!?!? They're the polar opposites. Yeltsen was pro-democracy, friendly to the West and led Russia to absolute financial ruin whereas Putin has consolodated power, stood up to America and restored some semblance of economic well-being within his nation. Personally, I am utterly perplexed that there is any opposition to Putin within Russia, it's like people forgot the extreme hardship thrust upon them by the incompetents who formerly ran the country into the ground.

Yelstsen and He are equally as corrupt.

And though he was scapegoated for the economy, there isn't anyone who was going to end up doing well in that transition.

Putin was only benefiting from coming in at the end of the process after the pain from transitioning came about and market transitions were complete.  He's only gotten in the way of Russias economy.

http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/paper.cfm?ResearchID=974

LOL, Kaz, that's so typicall of you. Present an opinion throwing in some long and boring article as the only argumentation, practically forcing people to read it. Well, valid, but will you have a little mercy on people? Your opponents are human beings, too :D

I've made an effort over myself and read it all, couple of times stumbling over the name Nemtsov along the way, which made me worry and gave a strong sense of deja vu at the same time. And while reading through reference materials I've come across... Itogi reference. Jesus mother fucking christ... Itogi :D That's what it reminds me, an infamous Nemtsov and Milov's Itogi. Though merely a single reference, the entire article is basically a summary of Itogi, quouting it couple of times, like here, which's Aslund's key idea as I understand it: "What remains of Putin's economic legacy is only that he was lucky to reap the benefits of the arduous but productive reforms his predecessor instigated in the 1990s (Milov and Nemtsov 2008)". Really he could have never bothered to brining anything else to the references except of Itogi.

Of course, it's excusable for you, Kaz. Should you've known about Russian politikum more (the figure of the author, Nemtsov, is pretty much telling all by itself), you wouldn't touch with a ten feet pole anything that's based, mentions or refers to Itogi without an attempt to have a few laughs. Just be warned, that serious people in serious talks avoid brining up Itogi, the same way historians do not bring up Fomenko*.

 

* Ok, that's yet another cultural-specific example, but I believe you got an idea and can think of a better example for yourself.


I enjoyed that (and your follow up post). I do enjoy Kasz's posts but he does have an habit of producing someone's (writer, politician, whoever) opinion without giving thought that it doesn't make that opinion factual or valid. It's just someone's opinion he agrees with.

There are many times I wanted to reply to some of his posts but just couldn't be bothered.

This is not an attack on you Kasz, and as it make's for interesting discussions, I encourage it.

They are always to sides to a coin. I travel a bit in my job and it is simply amazing how news is manipulated depending on where you are.

In the west it's played out like Putin has to cheat to win and could actually loose. By showing a few thousand people protesting in a coutry of 140m on TV just means there is opposition to him, nothing else. It's the old "who makes the most noise" trick.

The west doesn't like Putin, play him off as the bad guy. A couple years ago the west loved Gaddafi, played him of as the good guy.

Even if these elections were 100% straight and without any fiddling Putin is still very likely to have won.

As for your other post it is true that America has been meddling in many other countries elections for decades. How is this democratic? Trying to force your will on another. Imaging some other country getting involved in the US elections... then again the way things are going, who knows what the future holds.


1) The west has NEVER played Quaddafi off as a good guy.   Quadaffi has always been treated as a brutal dictator.  The only thing "close" to being protrayed as good is when he rolled over because of the Bush invasions and suddenly gave up his greater weapon positions.  The story then was "He's an evil dick who was intimidated by the US, which suggests his regime might fall apart by itself, because he's clearly afraid of the US for some reason."

2) All the condemnation i've seen has seemed to of been annoyance of the fact that Putin cheated even though he was going to win anyway. 

3)  I didn't really see anything he wrote in the entire post that actually disagreed with it.  Just the source.

In otherwords, there has been no suggestion that Putin actually did change sources... and actually, the article does source quite a bit of different things in relation to corruption and other factors.  (Corruption being the same, democracy going backwords.)

I mean, if you want to argue with the article... actually argue with it.

Instead he brought up refrences that happen AFTER the main point. 

Which was, Putin didn't change anything related to the economy until much later... and simply instituted second wave changes that were conceived before he ever made it to power.

1) Contrary to the popular American belief the west is far bigger than America. In Italy, Germany, France (maybe all the EU) and to a certain degree even in Britain - although Lockerbie was always going to be a brick wall,  he was a good guy to do business with. Maybe I should have clarify my definition of "the west".

2) Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Maybe Saddam had nukes, maybe he didn't. Maybe Bush should have lost his first campaign in Florida maybe he shouldn't. Forgive me I was being deliberately obtuse. I don't believe much propaganda but even I believe he cheated.

3) I agree, it's was your soucres I was talking about.

I get the rest of your post. Can't argue with the rest of it.

BTW thanks for understanding what I posted and not taking it as an attack on you because it was anything but.

I do find your outlook on politics quite interesting.



Acevil on 05 March 2012
lordmandeep said:
"and where the % of votes don't seem to matter. "

In Canada and Britain it is sort of the same.

You can get 10% of the vote and get 54 out of 300 seats or get 16% of the vote and get only 2%.
You can get 30% of the vote and get 0 Seats as well in a certain region lol...


Typing with one hand, but I know Canada system is flawed as well, on top of that voter turn-out is horrible. However the problem with USA system is that it is always that close. Can't speak on British election system, as I never ever followed it, or even looked it, not that I will either. Given I thank god, that our conservative party isn't as bad Republican or Democrats (even if they would be considered in the middle of the political spectrum, between those two parties), and not that I typically am liberal in ideals, however sometimes I lean right, because the left get to liberal. 

(Now that I have both hands, I will fix my post a bit)



 

Mr Khan on 05 March 2012
Zlejedi said:
Lukaszenka gets over 90% , so pathetic Mr. Putin ;)

This is an interesting story in and of itself, since the Byelorussians are a better-developed country economically (they're about level with the "good" parts of Russia, and don't have regions like the North Caucasus holding them back), one would think they would have developed more stable democracy than Russia did, and not a system even more authoritarian.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Kasz216 on 05 March 2012
justinian said:
Kasz216 said:
justinian said:
mai said:
Kasz216 said:
bouzane said:

''The guy before him was Boris Yeltsen.  Putin I believe is more popular, though it's not that much of a differnece since they're essentially two peas in a pod.''

WHAT?!?!? They're the polar opposites. Yeltsen was pro-democracy, friendly to the West and led Russia to absolute financial ruin whereas Putin has consolodated power, stood up to America and restored some semblance of economic well-being within his nation. Personally, I am utterly perplexed that there is any opposition to Putin within Russia, it's like people forgot the extreme hardship thrust upon them by the incompetents who formerly ran the country into the ground.

Yelstsen and He are equally as corrupt.

And though he was scapegoated for the economy, there isn't anyone who was going to end up doing well in that transition.

Putin was only benefiting from coming in at the end of the process after the pain from transitioning came about and market transitions were complete.  He's only gotten in the way of Russias economy.

http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/paper.cfm?ResearchID=974

LOL, Kaz, that's so typicall of you. Present an opinion throwing in some long and boring article as the only argumentation, practically forcing people to read it. Well, valid, but will you have a little mercy on people? Your opponents are human beings, too :D

I've made an effort over myself and read it all, couple of times stumbling over the name Nemtsov along the way, which made me worry and gave a strong sense of deja vu at the same time. And while reading through reference materials I've come across... Itogi reference. Jesus mother fucking christ... Itogi :D That's what it reminds me, an infamous Nemtsov and Milov's Itogi. Though merely a single reference, the entire article is basically a summary of Itogi, quouting it couple of times, like here, which's Aslund's key idea as I understand it: "What remains of Putin's economic legacy is only that he was lucky to reap the benefits of the arduous but productive reforms his predecessor instigated in the 1990s (Milov and Nemtsov 2008)". Really he could have never bothered to brining anything else to the references except of Itogi.

Of course, it's excusable for you, Kaz. Should you've known about Russian politikum more (the figure of the author, Nemtsov, is pretty much telling all by itself), you wouldn't touch with a ten feet pole anything that's based, mentions or refers to Itogi without an attempt to have a few laughs. Just be warned, that serious people in serious talks avoid brining up Itogi, the same way historians do not bring up Fomenko*.

 

* Ok, that's yet another cultural-specific example, but I believe you got an idea and can think of a better example for yourself.


I enjoyed that (and your follow up post). I do enjoy Kasz's posts but he does have an habit of producing someone's (writer, politician, whoever) opinion without giving thought that it doesn't make that opinion factual or valid. It's just someone's opinion he agrees with.

There are many times I wanted to reply to some of his posts but just couldn't be bothered.

This is not an attack on you Kasz, and as it make's for interesting discussions, I encourage it.

They are always to sides to a coin. I travel a bit in my job and it is simply amazing how news is manipulated depending on where you are.

In the west it's played out like Putin has to cheat to win and could actually loose. By showing a few thousand people protesting in a coutry of 140m on TV just means there is opposition to him, nothing else. It's the old "who makes the most noise" trick.

The west doesn't like Putin, play him off as the bad guy. A couple years ago the west loved Gaddafi, played him of as the good guy.

Even if these elections were 100% straight and without any fiddling Putin is still very likely to have won.

As for your other post it is true that America has been meddling in many other countries elections for decades. How is this democratic? Trying to force your will on another. Imaging some other country getting involved in the US elections... then again the way things are going, who knows what the future holds.


1) The west has NEVER played Quaddafi off as a good guy.   Quadaffi has always been treated as a brutal dictator.  The only thing "close" to being protrayed as good is when he rolled over because of the Bush invasions and suddenly gave up his greater weapon positions.  The story then was "He's an evil dick who was intimidated by the US, which suggests his regime might fall apart by itself, because he's clearly afraid of the US for some reason."

2) All the condemnation i've seen has seemed to of been annoyance of the fact that Putin cheated even though he was going to win anyway. 

3)  I didn't really see anything he wrote in the entire post that actually disagreed with it.  Just the source.

In otherwords, there has been no suggestion that Putin actually did change sources... and actually, the article does source quite a bit of different things in relation to corruption and other factors.  (Corruption being the same, democracy going backwords.)

I mean, if you want to argue with the article... actually argue with it.

Instead he brought up refrences that happen AFTER the main point. 

Which was, Putin didn't change anything related to the economy until much later... and simply instituted second wave changes that were conceived before he ever made it to power.

1) Contrary to the popular American belief the west is far bigger than America. In Italy, Germany, France (maybe all the EU) and to a certain degree even in Britain - although Lockerbie was always going to be a brick wall,  he was a good guy to do business with. Maybe I should have clarify my definition of "the west".

2) Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Maybe Saddam had nukes, maybe he didn't. Maybe Bush should have lost his first campaign in Florida maybe he shouldn't. Forgive me I was being deliberately obtuse. I don't believe much propaganda but even I believe he cheated.

3) I agree, it's was your soucres I was talking about.

I get the rest of your post. Can't argue with the rest of it.

BTW thanks for understanding what I posted and not taking it as an attack on you because it was anything but.

I do find your outlook on politics quite interesting.


Sorry, usually when people say "The west" they actually just mean "Hey America is doing this."  Can't really comment on Europe news on Quadaffi.

Also, there was no way Saddam Hussein had nukes.  What's funny is, by all accounts HE thought he had more WMDs then he did.  Nothing woth invading Iraq for, but he did have some WMDs, and thought he had a lot more. I mean, he didn't even have all the WMDs the US sold to him.

(WMDs are a lot wider category then people give credit.)