I think that this article could end up being cited a lot. It has a very believable thesis. I'd like to see it put to the test, and then condensed down and hopefully inform news reporting a bit.
If we accept that, as a member of the super-wealthy post-USSR kleptocracy engaged in an endless Presidency, Putin is naturally most concerned about maintaining domestic power, then the thesis is: massive uprisings in their largest ex-Soviet neighbor, against a Russian-allied President, where the public floods into the President's palace and becomes even more enraged at evidence of their wealth (a golden loaf of bread; a pirate-ship restaurant), make it impossible domestically that Putin not respond with a show of force.
As the article says, he and his chums have palaces too.
People like you completely miss the point on Russia. You cannot accept that it is indeed a democracy, that people are not brainwashed. And that pretty much the contrary of what western media portrays is happening there. Trust me, i've been there.
They are not brainwashed to the same extent that the people of North Korea are brainwashed, but the majority of them do get all of their news from (State-owned) TV channels and uncritically subscribe to the ruling party's ideology.
They're brainwashed to the same extent that many people in the US are brainwashed.
The wonderful thing about modern propaganda is that it has become so subtle we often mistake it for our own opinions.
As a European when I watched CNN for the first time at the early stages of the Iraq war, I first wasn't sure whether it was supposed to be satire or fiction. It took me a while to realise that this is what many people think of as "news" in the US. Makes me wonder what I miss in our own news media -- you only spot bold faced lies when you have a trusted reference you can compare them to.
BS. People use the internet. Most people support the goverment, why is hard to accept that ? Democracy only works for north americans when they like the leader....
I'm sorry -- but Putin employs professional trolls to comment, often in teams of 2 or 3, often speaking amongst themselves to first divert and then control the conversation, on forums just like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269760
That makes it a bit difficult to respond in good faith to people who chime in with vague, 'you people believe the western media too much' comments.
But I'd be interested in knowing your response to concrete things I mentioned in my comment. For instance, how wealthy is Putin? How about his close allies? And how did they make their fortunes? And is he in an endless Presidency, or not?
(None of which is to say that Putin hasn't been a fantastically successful President; he reintroduced the stability necessary for Russia to succeed, which it really has during his Presidency ... but the problems with success via concentration of power in one man are age-old, and a common one is a foreign policy, motivated by entirely domestic concerns and a desire to stay on top, that appears irrational on the international stage).
I'm not a professional poster. I already shared my twitter handle. From there you can find my entire social media presence. This is my personal oponion..
I just think its a tell tale when people disregard opinions like mine as enemy propaganda.
Its like a sign of the hyve mentality. Contrarian opinions are always right in cases like this.
Could you provide a reliable source with a more or less unbiased information about Russia then? And please don't mention Russia Today :)
Because any I've been reading a lot of information on the matter from a large number of sources, and couldn't help but draw a conclusion that Russia is indeed a pseudo-democracy trying hide its totalitarian essence.
I followed the news for a while now with regards to Ukraine. I don't understand why people are arguing about legitimacy of things in international politics.
The facts are simple:
- Russia had Ukraine in her iron grip
- EU was expanding east
- pro-Russian president turned down EU's offer
- Ukrainians got pissed, because the state of things suck and they want change, and EU seems like a good idea (whether it will work out for them is another story)
- they overthrew the pro-Russian government, and got a pro-EU one, who is unfortunately also quite corrupt, but that's beside the point
- Russia is pissed, and finds a way to intervene.
In short, the west started a diplomatic/cultural war in Ukraine, and Russia lost, so it's resorting to physical war now. There is really no good guys in international politics.
I've known several people from Croatia, Latvia, Georgia and now Ukraine. They all look down upon Russians and are easily offended when people refer to them as such.
Definitely no love loss for Putin or Russia among them.
> They all look down upon Russians and are easily offended when people refer to them as such.
It is more complicated.
Being ethnic Russian is not same thing as speaking Russian language.
Speaking Russian language or being ethnic Russian is not same as being pro-Russia politically.
Yet, Russian propaganda implies this things are same and Russian govt represents interests of all people who speak this language.
As result (some) people abandon language, distance themselves from Russia or don't consider themselves Russian anymore.
I am sure a lot of North Osetians in Georgia are offended when they remember Georgia invading them and killing helpless people because the prime minister of Georgia back then was a US puppet.
While Putin has many faults blaming him for the situation that lead up to modern day Ukraine is not right. The Ukrainian people overthrew their elected government lead by Yanukovych who may or may not have sought Russia's help in protecting his government. Basically a series of dysfunctional leaders led to Yanukovych's ouster and when they could not get their affairs in order Putin took Crimea.
So while Putin's people are likely causing issues in Ukraine it is just as likely there are many people in Ukraine who did not support the revolution and seek outside support for the last legitimately elected government.
TL;DR. the people of Ukraine made a mess of it, gave Putin and opening, and still cannot sort it out. Not the news HN should be showing
That's enough for me to put the blame squarely on Russia for the current situation. Whether the people who initiated the coup against Yanukovych represent the entire population, a majority or a minority, it's an internal Ukrainian affair and Russia has no business interfering.
Add the take down of the Dutch plane, the nonsense about tanks taking "relief supplies" over the border, soldiers getting "lost on vacation" and it's pretty clear that Putin is engaging in an illegal war.
And, yes, I am from the US. I don't agree with our illegal wars either so please don't go there.
Crimea was Russian and voted to join Russia. Illegal wars are what the US wages around the world. Russians are helping the insurgents unoficially because Nuland and that scumbag US ambassador placed a Nazi Junta in power.
1. Crimea was Ukrainian from 1954 until Russia's invasion.
2. The election held after Russia invaded was neither fair nor free. Non-citizens were allowed to vote and militias coerced voting.
You might take a look at Paul Graig Roberts articles at http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/ so that, you as an American may become more informed of what your "government" is doing to other countries
Ehhhhh, no. Yanukovych was a Putin puppet elected with Russian money that served predominantly Russian interests, hence his defiant opposition to what the populace wanted - steps to integrate with the European Union.
His government turned on its own people and cracked down on protesters, leading to the events of EuroMaidan. Putin of course would not have the European Union in his backyard. He also certainly did not want his main access to the Black Sea to be cut off, so he used the turmoil to annex Crimea, while keeping Eastern Ukraine as unstable as possible.
It's also worth noting that despite the article's assurances that these are mere misconceptions, there really was a Western power struggle surrounding the Ukrainian uprising before the Crimean affair.
As much fun it is to bring up the infamous "Fuck the EU" phone leak, there were serious efforts to pave the road for a Ukranian entry into the EU and/or NATO -- a knowing violation the silent agreement to have a post-Soviet buffer zone between the West and Russia.
The Ukrainians have no obligation to uphold any kind of "silent" agreement. If they want to join an economic organization, it is their right to do so - a sentiment they expressed through Euromaidan.
Seems pretty one-sided and biased. Mentioning Putin personally way too many times, unrelated to the proportion of influence that he's got in the situation.
We are engineers here, we know that big disasters come from a complex of different factors. Why do you think Ukraine is an exception, why continue blaming a single person? I don't see why this sort of article should be on HN.
There is no need to bring up personal attacks in an HN discussion. If you disagree with his points, then you can provide counter argument; if his comments are just insults with no backing argument, then down vote him.
I can understand having a contrary opinion; your opinion is perfectly valid. But how vehemently you're arguing your opinion, along with your long absence from posting, seems a bit suspicious to me.
I just gave you my twitter handle. There is a link to all my social media accounts. Not trying to hide. People like you are the reason the contrarian pragmatic class is already fed up with this hyve murica mentality.
even John Kerry already told Poroshenko to think twice.
And many more that were flagged. Also, same with goerge1980, a brand-new account less than an hour old as of this writing (most of his comments are gone, but a few are still floating around).
Well. Our comments are being flagged because our 1st amendment rights to have a contrarian opinion don't apply to internet forums like this one full of north americans.
In Brazil, shouldn't Article 5 of Section IX of the Brazilian Constitution, Title II apply?
It is a human right to speak freely, but it's not requisite that anyone provide a forum. While it's not perfect, HN does a pretty good job of supporting well-reasoned and factually-backed dissent.
Support arguments with compelling evidence, and you'll quickly find supporters. You're being downvoted and flagged for attempting to dominate the conversation.
It doesn't even matter what they post. Thanks to HN "feature" that stories with more comments than upvotes get buried, the mere act of posting a lot of comments ensures that this story gets off the frontpage very quickly, essentially censoring it. That's the real goal of these accounts, not changing anyone's opinion.
You can begin a lot of things with "The nightmare Vladimir Putin has visited upon"...
I'm an LGBT person (specifically, I'm both L and T), and after seeing what Putin did to my people, I have absolutely zero respect for anyone who supports Russia in any way.
Radical ideological extremism is harmful, no matter whether you think you're justified.
Yes, a lot of Russian politics are pretty worrying and negatively impact the lives of all kinds of people, but if you paint everyone in such broad strokes, you end up coating the entire world.
Maybe so. But I'm not saying you shouldn't criticize Russia. I'm saying it's stupid to make blanket statements about people who don't demonize all things Russian.
Besides, a lot of anti-nonheteronormative politics in Russia likely have more to do with political tactics than with actual convictions of Putin or anybody else. For example the Russian Orthodox church is still immensely powerful in many parts of Russia and condemning "sexual deviants" is an easy way to score points with them and the corresponding demographic (and thus voters).
There's a nice phrase that was introduced by a Jew documenting the trial of one of the organizers of the Holocaust: the banality of evil. Most acts of evil are either well-intentioned or simply "accidentally" evil -- the evil itself is merely a consequence or side-effect.
Yes, you should oppose repressive policies. Vehemently so. But "Russia" as a whole is far more complex and complicated than any individual policy or group of policies.
I'm strongly opposed to a lot of what the US is and does, both as a government and as the people that elected and sustains that government's actions. But it would be absurd to deride people who say anything good at all about the US or Americans simply for not immediately qualifying their statements with criticism.
I wouldn't want to live in Russia or the US. I think both countries are guilty of all sorts of crimes against their own citizens and mankind in general, each in their own uniquely horrible ways. But that doesn't mean they have no redeeming qualities.
Heck, even Hitler was a vegetarian and had an affection for dogs.
It's not illegal to be gay in Russia. Although their gay law is backwards. It's a far cry from what you see in the Middle East. It looks more like what you see in Middle USA. Conservative, yes, oppressive and dangerous, not necessarily. Im for LGBT rights, but this topic is overblown.
I live in Texas, I am out and proud as a transgender lesbian, and I've never had any problems. It's not illegal to say it's OK to be gay anywhere in the US, but it is in Russia.
No ethnic tensions really happened in Ukraine ever. Biggest problem I (as ethnic Russian and Ukrainian citizen) ever had was about spelling my name in Latin letters.
It's totally made up topic that just appears before elections.
You can use spoken and written Russian almost everywhere including contracts, court, communication with government employees, etc.
They may happen now in Russia-occupied and war-torn areas and boarding areas, but don't happen on the South that is controlled by government and where Russian-speaking and people of Russian ethnos also live.
Yet, at Donbass and Crimea Ukrainians and Crimean tatars are threatened.
So yes, there are ethnic tensions now, thanks to Russian govt.
This post will bring in a lot of Russia's professional internet posters. You will see the parents and GP's talking points again and again. They will not debate or answer, just post their talking points.
Why I am a Russian Professional Internet Poster ? I'm just somebody with a different opinion. This is the sort of dangerous disregard for the opposite opinion that somebody like Peter Thiel would deem like a hyve mentality. You are wrong. Face it. Actually I don't think you will face it, you will just keep thinking like the maintstream.
Why I am a Russian Professional Internet Poster ? I'm just somebody with a different opinion. This is the sort of dangerous disregard for the opposite opinion that somebody like Peter Thiel would deem like a hyve mentality. You are wrong. Face it. Actually I don't think you will face it, you will just keep thinking like the maintstream.
It was not an invasion. The people of the east rebelled against a government that condecorates NAZI SUPPORTERS. A goverment that oppresses it's people so much not even super biased VICE documentaries can hide it anymore. Stop with this bandwagon mentality and go see the light.
What a disturbing opinion and mindset. I was born and raised in Ukraine, still have most of my family there. Everything you said is absurd; we simply want freedom from Russian influence to take care of our country.
If we accept that, as a member of the super-wealthy post-USSR kleptocracy engaged in an endless Presidency, Putin is naturally most concerned about maintaining domestic power, then the thesis is: massive uprisings in their largest ex-Soviet neighbor, against a Russian-allied President, where the public floods into the President's palace and becomes even more enraged at evidence of their wealth (a golden loaf of bread; a pirate-ship restaurant), make it impossible domestically that Putin not respond with a show of force.
As the article says, he and his chums have palaces too.