It looks like your average reddit thread because it is insufficiently moderated.

Without some minimum degree of freedom of expression, new ideas just don't get expressed because expressing them would be dangerous. And if one can't express new ideas, why have them? So only cultures that are reasonably open and tolerant can generate new ideas at a sustained rate. Of course these things come and go: cultures evolve all the time.

That only requires reading the news and dive a bit in its laws (le 49.3). — Benkei

So you trust the news, huh? I thought it was all propaganda. What gives?

just look to two countries north. — Benkei

Which ones?

you're apparently incapable of imagining something better. — Benkei

Be our guest: invent something better than global Putinistan.

that you as a Frenchmen do not see the lack of democratic decision making in your own country is a clear indicator you're not qualified to talk about democracy to begin with. — Benkei

Have you lived in France? Are you truly qualified to talk about the French democracy, or are you just repeating racist propaganda?

Sounds interesting.

You guys are arguing for the status quo ante here. Not us. We want Russia to be free. Do you?

Especially France with it's insane disproportionate influence on training civil servants, top managers and politicians in ENA is a joke from a democratic legitimacy point of view. — Benkei

So because there is a school somewhere, we don't have a democracy. That's what passes for 'analysis' among the nihilists.

I bet you none of them has ever lived under a dictatorship. Or they wouldn't speak with such disdain for freedom.

It’s significant how many contributors here use this subject as a pretext for questioning democracy generally.

And scary.

Mind you, some of them seem not to know what to believe — Wayfarer

That's what I call political nihilism: the belief that all politics are equally fake and exploitative. You could also call it the Zero Hypothesis of political economy: the idea that there's no real difference between political systems.

When they claim that Western propaganda is comparable to Russian propaganda, that Biden is like Goebbels, it's not just that they lack nuance to an extraordinary degree. It's also that they are afraid of change, they are afraid of freedom, and novelty. They want to be slaves. They are comfy in their lack of freedom. They like it this way, when there is no way out, no solution.

I suspect that fundamentally, they are afraid of their own hopes.

You could take a course in political economy. But the short answer is: can you vote to fire the leaders of your country, or not. The French can fire Macron if they want to.

how can the people ever take control of Russia if it has never been done before? — FreeEmotion

Because they are human beings who can invent their own future. They are not machines bound to repeat themselves forever.

I mean, I read the good ones... :chin:

I've read all the books.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Look, I'm just "a guy" who found at around 12—after reading all the popular physics books I could find, the complete history of WWII and Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy—and read Isaiah Berlin's "Power of Ideas" .... and thought to myself, "I can play this game, nothing they can do I can't do better." — boethius

You mean, you were smart once?

What happened to you, after 12?

:fire:

In any event, it's a handful of Chinese sages centuries from now who get to decide. — boethius

Sure thing, as long as they don't pin it on me.

The damned mathematicians that brought us here, and not just the prerequisite theory for the Manhattan project: but all the way back to Babylon. A relatively short list of truly revolutionary mathematical minds. — boethius

And you and I are part of that 'very short list', you think? Or are you rather saying that we are part of some universal idea exchange fair?

Advising people is a business. Amateurs don't advise professionals. We are all amateurs here, are we not?

You can of course write down the words: 'I advise Biden to do X'. That you can do. But chances are your 'advice' ain't going to get to him. Because he receives a lot of advice, from other people than you. He pays dear money and far more attention to their advice than to yours and mine. As good as it may be...

Now if you ask me as a hypothetical: what would you advise Biden to do, IF (humongous if) he happened to ask for your advice, then I can think of something along the lines of keeping it steady and non-provocative as you do, man. Just don't lose the script. It freaks people out.

You have been morally condemning the Russians and advising the Ukrainians to fight the Russians, and advising NATO and EU to keep sending more arms. — boethius

I have not given advice to anyone. NATO, the EU, none of the actors you mentioned is reading TPFand they have not asked for our advice. If by any malchance they are really lurking and reading these pages in search of a clue about what to do next, then 1) we are truly screwed; 2) let me tell them: I know strictly nothing about military matters; so please don't listen to me.

the devil you know — boethius

We could still discover new sides of him, but yes, there might be some truth there. However, nobody is eternal, and no regime is eternal either.

Yes, although one could argue a symmetrical point against not advising a friend when you should have.

zero personal risk "advising" your Russian friends to "revolt" — boethius

I'm not personally advising anyone to revolt. I know too little and as you said, I have no influence whatsoever. It was Mr Littell's advice based on his own analysis and knowledge. I tend to think he is right that the situation will worsen, and so now is the time, but what do I know? You are right that it seems next to impossible to succeed.

You want a violent revolution in Russia with blood pouring in the streets.

If this then, in itself triggers WWIII and nuclear exchange, or then hundreds of nuclear warheads go missing on the black market in a chaotic unraveling of the Russian state, are you really owning those consequences? — boethius

Now that IS interesting. The current leadership has been saying again and again recently, in various official statements, that a desintegration of Russia or a threat on its regime could trigger a nuclear holocaust. And now you seem to be arguing the exact same talking point.

If I understand correctly, the idea is NOT that they could use nukes in Ukraine if things go south there, as CNN wrongly (IMO) concluded. What I am hearing in all these recent pronouncements, including in yours, is a different message which says: If this particular regime goes down, e g. by a revolution, then the whole world might go down with it through a nuclear holocaust.

Do you confirm this is what you mean? Because it is a pretty extraordinary statement...

I suspect the real reason is more prosaic. If it is not for him to give them advice, it might be that the opposite is the case: they give him 'advice'.

what's actually effective is the key question — boethius

As argued in the letter, an emulation of Maidan is the answer to that. I.e. do what the Ukrainians did.

I still note that you treat Ukrainians very differently that Russians. You are not afraid of giving them advice, and also to the Americans or the French, but you are afraid of advising the Russians. Strange that... :-)

I spend a lot more time thinking about what I can do, — boethius

Well then, you can't really comment on Littell's letter, because it's not about what non-Russians can do.

Why are you comfortable writing about what the Ukrainians should do, though, but afraid of writing about what the Russians should do? Are you Ukrainian?

When you say 'we' you mean pro-Putin guys like you, or some other group?

Stick to what Russians themselves can do, as this is the subject of the letter. Americans, Chinese, French, Zimbabweans, Fins, can't do much... The question is: can the Russians follow the example of the Ukrainians and revolt? What do you think?

if it's not views you agree with, then you should make that clear, — boethius

Just saying, if you want to talk about that letter, do talk about what is actually said in the letter, rather than other stuff that has nothing to see with it.

The letter is not about ammunition given by the west to the Ukrainians in their legitimate fight against their aggressor. It has nothing to do with it.

The letter is meant for Russians. It tells them that, if they can summon enough courage, there is in fact an alternative between fleeing and being crushed: that of fighting back. Like the Ukrainians have done.

Now if you agree or disagree with precisely that, we can talk about iit.But i am not interested in yet another convoluted, illogical effort of yours to prove that Biden is a devil or Putin an angel. Don't take me for a ride.

The letter is not mine. It was written by Franco-American writer-activist Jonathan Littell, who spent a lot of time in Russia when he was working for the NGO Action Against Hunger, and has friends there.

The letter is not about ammunition given by the west to the Ukrainians in their legitimate fight against their aggressor. It has nothing to do with it.

The letter is meant for Russians. It tells them that, if they can summon enough courage, there is in fact an alternative between fleeing and being crushed: that of fighting back. Like the Ukrainians have done.

Of course if President Biden is removed from power, guess who takes over the reigns, and who will have the entire nuclear arsenal at her disposal? — FreeEmotion

Somebody controlled by the FSB, I would guess.

FAUX News is a lie machine BTW.

All the demons from Dante's Hell perhaps...

I would say it is honest and blunt. Not the kind of boring, tasteless, manipulative or dissimulative PC op-ed one would read in your average US newspaper. So yes, you are entitled to be shocked and surprised. It's been published in Le Monde.

But I don't see what Jonathan Littell is actually predicting — boethius

He is predicting much sufferings for Russians if they don't get rid of Mr Putin now.

Who told you she wasn't?

Since we've started making predictions, let us hear what Jonathan Littell predicts... It's harsh.



My Dear Russian Friends, It’s Time For Your Maidan
Jonathan Littell

My dear Russian friends: some old friends, some more recent, some I only know from afar, friends in soul and spirit. Times are tough for you too. Like those of all Ukrainians, your lives, never simple, have been turned upside down. Many of you are fleeing Russia. And many of you share with me a feeling of guilt and shame about what your country is doing, in your name, to Ukraine.

Those of you who were activists had been on borrowed time for a long while and were preparing for the final attack. On March 4, I wrote to Alexander Cherkasov, a very old friend from the NGO Memorial. “I’ll tell you later, he replied laconically. After the search [that day by Russian police], we wander among the ruins. Gutted computers. Forced safes. » Others, cultural figures, artists, writers, are stunned by the sudden collapse of their fragile world. None of you like Putin and his regime of thieves and fascists; most of you hate them. But let’s be honest: with a few rare exceptions – the friends of Memorial, of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, of the site Medusa, and a handful of others – how many of you have lifted a finger to resist this regime? Could it be that your feelings of shame and guilt are not entirely abstract? Are they also due to your long indifference to what was happening around you, to your apathy, to your passive complicity?

You didn’t want to know

It wasn’t always like this. There was a time in the 1990s when you had freedom and democracy, chaotic, even bloody, but very real. But 1991 ended the same way as 1917. Why, every time you finally make your revolution, you get so scared of the Time of Troubles that you go and hide under the petticoats of a tsar, a Stalin or Putin?

It’s true, mistakes were made. Instead of exposing the archives of the KGB, as the former East Germany did with those of the Stasi, the political police, you let yourself be distracted by the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky and you let the KGB hunker down and then rebuild and take over the nation. When you were offered the choice between the plunder of the country or bringing back the Communists, you did not fight to impose a third choice and you accepted the plunder. In 1998 your economy collapsed: no more mass protests for social justice or against the war in Chechnya then. Survival became your primary concern.

Then you were introduced to Putin. Young, bold, aggressive, promising the destruction of terrorists and the recovery of the economy. Few of you believed it, but you voted for him anyway, or you didn't vote at all. And when he started razing Chechnya, most of you closed your eyes. I remember those years very well. I worked in the field, delivering humanitarian aid to the countless victims of his "anti-terrorist operation", criss-crossing the ruins of Grozny and so many other towns. Sometimes I would go to Moscow, party with you guys. We drank, we danced. And then, I was trying to tell you about the horrors over there. And you were like, "Jonathan, we're sick of your Chechnya." I remember those words precisely. And I was furious: “Guys, this is not my Chechnya, this is your Chechnya. This is your fucking country, not mine. I'm just a stupid stranger here. It is your government that bombs one of your cities, that kills your fellow citizens." But no, it was too complicated, too painful, you didn't want to know.

Assassinations of opponents

Then came the great Russian economic boom of the mid-2000s, fueled by soaring oil prices and some of the stolen money that Putin willed trickled down to the middle class. Many of you have made money, and even the poorest have been entitled to new apartments and better jobs. When an opponent was murdered – journalist Anna Politkovskaya [October 7, 2006], ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko [died November 23, 2006], and others – you expressed your horror and shock, but it didn't go any further. When Putin, after two terms, castled with his Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, you hardly noticed. When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, most of you ignored it, or remained silent. And in the years that followed, how many of you have I passed on the ski slopes of the Georgian resort of Gudauri, or strolling through old Tbilisi, while your army occupied part of the country? Not that we here in the West have done much either. A few complaints, a few penalties; but what are gross violations of international law in comparison to oil, gas and the Russian internal market?

At the end of 2011, however, you, my Russian friends, woke up. When Putin again took over from Medvedev, many of you decided that was one dirty trick too many, and took to the streets. For six months, you filled the streets, causing the regime to falter. Then they fought back, raining down arrests and long prison sentences. And those of you who survived went home. "What could we do? I've heard that so many times, and I still hear it today. “The state is so powerful, and we are so weak". Well, look at the Ukrainians. See what they did, two years after you. Once they had occupied Maidan, in their rage against a pro-Russian president who had broken his promise to move closer to Europe, they did not go back. They set up a tent village, organized and ready to defend themselves. When the police came to dislodge them, they fought back, iron bars and Molotov cocktails in their hands. In the end, the police opened fire; but instead of fleeing, the guys from Maidan charged. Many died, but they won. It was President Viktor Yanukovych who fled, and the Ukrainians regained their democracy, the right to choose their leaders and to fire them when they did their job badly.

Maidan really did not please Putin. It was a bad example. So, while everyone was still stunned, he took over Crimea. Some of you protested that too, in vain. And so many were enthusiastic! "Wonderful! Crimea is ours!" sang an overwhelming majority of your fellow citizens, suddenly drunk with imperial glory. I'm not just talking about the poor people in the ravaged depths of the country, where vodka and potatoes are the alpha and omega of politics, but about some of you, my friends. Writers. Publishers. Intellectuals. And for the Donbass, the same. "Novorossia", the New Russia. Suddenly there was this myth, and some who until then had despised Putin and his clique came to worship it. I don't know why, we quickly stopped talking to each other. As for the others, those who have remained my friends, you have mostly kept silent. "Politics don't interest me," you would say. And you returned to literature, cinema, and Ikea catalogs.

Putin has sought to show you what happens to a people who not only dare to claim their freedom, but attempt to take it back. If you do nothing, much will be lost anyway.

Syria, you hardly noticed. Anyway, they were all terrorists, right? Daesh, or whatever. Even my Moscow editor criticized me in an interview, saying that I did not understand what was going on there. At least I had been there, I had seen, in the streets of Homs, children the age of mine being shot down like rabbits. The only Russians to have been there are those in your army who, in 2015, began bombing Aleppo and training for their next big war.

Many of you, I'm sure, know the famous words of German pastor Martin Niemöller [1892-1984]: "When they came for the Communists, I said nothing because I was not a Communist. When they came for the trade unionists, I said nothing because I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I was not Jewish. And when they came for me, there was no one left to defend me. »

How many of you have stood up for the Chechens, the Syrians, the Ukrainians? There are some, of course, but far too many of you have remained silent. Some, it is true, are raising their voices today, most from abroad, a small number from Russia, taking the risk of being sent to join Alexei Navalny in the gulag. As for the others, you understand well in which country you live. And so you get this: when Putin is done with the Ukrainians – but even more so if he proves unable, as seems likely, to subdue them – he will come looking for you, my friends.

Who will defend you?

For those who bravely came out to protest. For the thousands of you who have signed petitions, or expressed your disagreement on social media, if only by posting a black square on Instagram. The days when ten years of deprivation of liberty, or even twenty-five, were handed over for a joke are not so far away, and they are coming back, it seems. And who will defend you then? Who will be left to do it?

The Ukrainians, even more than in 2014, pose a terrifying example for Putin's regime: they demonstrate that it is possible to fight him and that, if you are smart, motivated, and brave, you can even stop him, no matter how overwhelming his superiority. Nobody in Russia knows this, it seems. But you, my friends, know what is going on. You read the foreign press on the Internet, you all have friends and even family in Ukraine. And Putin knows that you know. So beware. No more good life in exchange for your silence. Your elections are a joke, your laws, apart from the repressive ones, are not worth a damn, your last free media don't exist anymore, your economy is collapsing faster than I can write, you don't even have a credit card to buy a plane ticket anymore, if there are any flights left. Now Putin doesn't just want your silence, he wants your assent, your complicity. And if you don't give it to him, you can either leave or be crushed.

I doubt that you see any alternative, but there is one: to bring down this regime. In the present situation, everything is possible. The spark will not come from you: with the economic crisis that is hitting Russia, it will probably start in the provinces; there, when prices soar and salaries are no longer paid, all those people who voted for Putin because they wanted bread and tranquility will take to the streets. Putin knows it, and he is much more afraid of them than of the middle classes in Moscow or St. Petersburg - you, my dear friends. But if each city protests on its own, as it has already happened, it will not be difficult for him to take over. Things must be coordinated, organized. The crowd has to be transformed into a mass. You have this magic tool, the Internet, a tool that can be used in almost all circumstances.

Be smart, be strategic

Navalny's organization has been liquidated, but others can be set up, more informal, more decentralized. There are many of you, millions of you. The Moscow police can handle 100,000 people in the streets; but with 300,000, they would be overwhelmed. So they will have to call in the army, but would this army fight for Putin? After what he made them do in Ukraine, after what he did to them?

There will be great dangers, for sure. Some of you will be afraid, it is natural, it is normal. I too, in your place, would be afraid. In Syria, and today in Ukraine, Putin has tried to show you, by example, what happens to a people who dare to defy their khoziain, their master and owner, who dare not only to claim their freedom, but even try to take it back. But if you do nothing, so many will be lost anyway. And you know it. One of your sons will make a joke on a video game chat and get arrested; one of your daughters will express her outrage on the Internet and get arrested; a dear friend of yours will make a mistake and die in a damp cell under the blows of a baton. It's been happening for years, and it will continue on an ever-increasing scale. So you have no choice: if you do nothing, you see how it will end. It is time for your own Maidan. Be smart, be strategic, and make it happen.

Such a person literally sees into the future. — boethius

Thanks for the laugh. You're a bit late to predicting this future. My wife has been warning us all of the same things for the past three decades.

So boethius is 'peddling' a message, but you're just offering an opinion? Care to share with us what the difference is? — Isaac

That would assume that you care enough to understand the difference, which I doubt.

From that site, cartooning for peace:


By Nardi from Italy


By Ares from Cuba


By Chapatte from Switzerland
(Biden: Putin should be brought to the International Court!
US General: which we don't recognize)

The problem in your picture there, is that the bear can do and say what it wants in that scenario. — boethius

Why is that a problem for you? I thought you liked bears more than hens.

Edit: I think I understand now what you meant: that as a piece of western propaganda, this cartoon was problematic, because it shows Russia (the bear) in a dominant position, or as you phrased it, able to do whatever it wants.

That may be because the cartoon is not a propaganda piece produced for your average Anglo-Saxon capitalist sheep media. It was instead produced as part of the Cartooning for Peace project, a non profit open to a wide array of professional and amateur cartoonists. Le Monde is publishing one a day.

https://www.cartooningforpeace.org/

Just as yours. Don't try and argue you know what's happening in Putin's head. You're not credible.