Theos-Talk Archives (July 2008 Message tt00104)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "kpauljohnson" <kpauljohnson@...> 
wrote:

> what you have in Russia with Putin leaving office [BUT NOT REALLY] 
> looks like another example of presidency for life.  And the extreme 

> That suggests that the monarchical atavistic urge is not dead 
> in the hearts of the Russian people.

It's not monarchism but rather return to what we had in USSR.
Or, more exactly, what we see in countries of Asia where presidents 
rule long and democracy is very restricted, or in South America.
The pure monarchism is very weak in Russia, though Russian Orthodox 
Church declared the killed members of the royal family saints.

The anecdote: Year 2025. Putin and Medvedev wake up very drunk.
Who of us is the president today? ? Putin asks.
? Probably you, ? Medvedev answers.
? Then it's you who'll go and buy beer!

> popularity in Russia of a man out to destroy civil liberties and 
> castrate the press constrasts rather strongly with the extreme 
> unpopularity in America of his counterpart

It's not quite true about the press. Press is free in Russia but the 
television is strongly controlled by the state, often not directly but 
through big business which wants to be in favour. As for radio, there 
are stations expressing views of the opposition but they have small 
audience. Also there is one such TV channel. Several western state 
radio stations in Russian are retransmitted in MW band in Moscow and 
Petersburg. I've heard that the American govenrnment didn't permit the 
same for the Russian state radio stations in New York or Washington. 
Euronews TV channel is available in Moscow not in cable networks only 
but in the air too.

Yet, what we are building now is called here a latin-american type of 
capitalism.
What American and especially English papers write about Russia is 
often very untrue.

People in majority distrust USA and the West at large, seing in 
pro-democracy movements the attempt to put our mineral resourses under 
cntrol. For example, there were several democratic revolutions in 
ex-USSR countries, but the attempts of such miraculously fail if the 
autocratic leader is pro-American. They succeed only if the displaced 
leader had friendly or neutral relations with Russia.

We also should remember that since 14th century Russia experienced no 
serious attacks from the East but was constantly attacked from the 
West, so many Russians don't trust to western initiatives. The 
attitude is changing but friendly feelings are directed mostly to 
Germany and France.