Putin’s ‘sovereign democracy’ looks familiar

[jetsetter]

MOSCOW - Vladimir Putin's Russia, in many ways, looks and feels like a new Soviet Union. The Russian president, who once praised democratic reform, now rules, some Russian experts say, like an old party chairman — crushing all opposition, cracking down on anti-government protests, even appointing mayors and regional governors.

Putin calls it “sovereign democracy.” Critics call it dictatorship.

"Today, if Putin says 'I want this' it will be done," says Vladimir Ryzhkov, a member of parliament.

And Putin wants no rivals — sending super-rich oilman Mikhail Khodorkovsky to jail on questionable charges.

Another opponent — billionaire Boris Berezovsky — fled to London, now in political exile.

"It's definitely [gone] way back to the Soviet Union," says Berezovsky. "Not in the sense of ideology, but in the sense of the organization of power."

Putin leveraged a booming economy, fueled by high oil prices, to build up that power, and used the media he controls to create a cult. Putin the sportsman, the fearless pilot, the global player.

"Mr. Putin, Mr. Putin, Mr. Putin — people are told that their only savior, the only guy that cares about them is Mr. Putin himself," says Yevgenia Albats, a journalist with The New Times.

With steely confidence he stunned Western officials last month in Munich. Attacking America with Cold War rhetoric, he claimed the U.S. wants to defeat the world.

Such policy can only lead to another arms race, he warned.

Putin's real message?

"Russia is back, so beware of us," says Sergei Strokan, a journalist with Kommersant. "Don't touch us. We are strong enough."

While the West cringes as Putin sounds and acts like a Soviet strongman, here at home, Russians love him. His approval ratings are soaring into the stratosphere. But Putin must go at the end of his second term next year. Unless he changes — or ignores — the Russian Constitution. Or rules from behind the scenes.

"America had better start getting used to dealing with somebody who understands power," says Francois Heisbourg of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Because it could be dealing with Putin's Russia for years to come.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17876775/

Should be interesting to see what happens when it is time to elect another Russsian leader.

[nomix]

I agree. That will be interesting.

Russia's a dictatorship. That's not something to discuss, tbh.

But the future will be interesting.

[Firecat]

I'm interested in his motives. Is it a matter of pride? (the obvious answer would be power, I guess) And how much support does he have?

[nomix]

I think a little of both.

But to be honest, I'm quite interested to see Russia in ten-fiftheen years. They do have an awful large reservoiar of natural resourses.

One might argue the possibilty of a conflict between Russia and China, over Siberia, there's only 20 million people in Siberia, must be very tempting for the country with the largest population in the world. It would be one of the largest conflicts we'd ever see, that's for sure. Not that likely, though. But I think they'll really expand their ecconomies over the next decades. A modern China and a modern Russia, that would be a real treath for the US and Europe. Not to forget the other Asian ecconomies.

But in the end, I don't think the population will earn much from it.

[BlaRo]

Originally Posted by jetsetter

Should be interesting to see what happens when it is time to elect another Russsian leader.

Originally Posted by nomix

I agree. That will be interesting.

Wow, you two actually agreed on something!

[nomix]

Originally Posted by BlaRo

Wow, you two actually agreed on something!

Yup. Just check out the thread about the new Harry Potter Covers in the Off Topic-section.

/OT

[jetsetter]

It begins........

Putin Tightens Internet Controls Before Presidential Election

By Henry Meyer

April 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Vladimir Putin has already brought Russian newspapers and television to heel. Now he's turning his attention to the Internet.

As the Kremlin gears up for the election of Putin's successor next March, Soviet-style controls are being extended to online news after a presidential decree last month set up a new agency to supervise both mass media and the Web.

``It's worrying that this happened ahead of the presidential campaign,'' Roman Bodanin, political editor of Gazeta.ru, Russia's most prominent online news site, said in a telephone interview. ``The Internet is the freest medium of communication today because TV is almost totally under government control, and print media largely so.''

All three national TV stations are state-controlled, and the state gas monopoly, OAO Gazprom, has been taking over major newspapers; self-censorship is routine. That has left the Internet as the main remaining platform for political debate, and Web sites that test the boundaries of free speech are already coming under pressure.

In December, a court in the Siberian region of Khakassia shut down the Internet news site Novy Fokus for not registering as a media outlet. The site, known for its critical reporting, reopened in late March after it agreed to register and accept stricter supervision.

Plug Pulled

Anticompromat.ru, which wrote about Putin's pre-presidential business interests, had to find a U.S. Web server after a Russian service provider pulled the plug March 28, saying it had been warned by officials to stop hosting the site.

Last year, the authorities shut down a Web site called Kursiv in the city of Ivanovo, northeast of Moscow, that lampooned Putin as a ``phallic symbol of Russia'' for his drive to boost the birthrate.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia isn't restricting media freedom and that the new agency isn't aimed at policing the Web.

``If you watch TV, even federal TV channels, you'll hear lots of criticism of the government,'' Peskov said in an interview. ``This new agency will be in charge of licensing. It's not about controlling the Internet.''

Putin, 54, isn't allowed to run for re-election in 2008 under Russia's two-term constitutional limit. Instead, he is promoting two potential successors: First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a 41-year-old lawyer, and Sergei Ivanov, 54, a KGB colleague of Putin who oversees much of Russian industry, including transport and nuclear power. The two, who both come from Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg, have become fixtures on state-controlled television.

Gorbachev's Complaint

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, whose policy of glasnost, or openness, ushered in media freedom in the late 1980s after decades of Soviet censorship, has condemned the state propaganda on the airwaves.

``The one thing I can say is that it's pointless today to watch television,'' Gorbachev, 76, said on the 20th anniversary of the launch of ``perestroika,'' his drive to allow more political and economic freedom that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

While most Russians rely on television for news, increasing numbers are turning to the Internet. Around a quarter of the adult population -- 28 million people -- are regular Internet users, according to the Public Opinion Foundation, a Moscow-based research organization. In 2002, only 8 percent fell into that category.

A Mass Medium

``When the Internet becomes more of a mass medium, then governments start getting worried, and they start treating it like the mass media,'' said Esther Dyson, who helped establish the Internet's system of domain names and addresses, and has consulted extensively in Russia.

``You can't control the Internet, but you can control people,'' she said in a telephone interview during a visit to Moscow.

Oleg Panfilov, head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations in Moscow, predicted in a telephone interview that ``pressure on the media is going to worsen'' as the presidential succession draws nearer.

Reporters who write critically about government policies are subjected to intimidation, arrests, attacks and other forms of pressure, the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights said March 27 in its annual report.

Facing Prison

Viktor Shmakov, editor of the newspaper Provintsialny Vesti in the oil-rich Bashkortostan republic, is facing up to 10 years in prison. Prosecutors charged him with inciting mass disturbances after his weekly urged readers to attend an opposition rally last year.

Russia is the second most dangerous country for journalists after Iraq, with 88 killed in the past 10 years, according to the Brussels-based International News Safety Institute.

Last October, Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent reporter and Kremlin critic who uncovered human-rights abuses by security forces in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow.

A journalist for the Kommersant daily, Ivan Safronov, who was investigating Russian weapons sales to Iran and Syria, fell to his death from a window in his Moscow apartment March 2.

The government, meanwhile, has been expanding Gazprom's media role. The company already took control of independent channel NTV in 2001 and bought long-established Russian daily Izvestia in 2005.

Last year, Kommersant, once owned by tycoon and exiled Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky, was sold to Alisher Usmanov, a steel magnate who is head of a Gazprom subsidiary. And Gazprom said in November it will acquire Russia's biggest-selling daily, Komsomolskaya Pravda, which has a circulation of 800,000.

Vladimir Rakhmankov, editor of the Web site that lost its Russian server after mocking Putin, said the Web crackdown is part of the final phase of a campaign to stifle free speech.

``Thank God the Internet is difficult to close down, but I think they will go after journalists who write things they don't like,'' he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...NQ4&refer=home

[RUU-CHAMA]

He is doing this and people are killing America because we say Sadaam was evil and Iran has ulterior motives? Hell, look who is backing Iran, surprise Russia and China. It does not matter anyway, when Hillary is elected President, we will withdraw from Iraq and take up a European attitude of talking while Iran gets a nuke and Russia becomes communist again.

[nomix]

Please, don't take that out of context. Yes, Russia is worse than the US. Yes, being stabbed is worse than being punched in the face, but I would rather perfer not being stabbed or being punched.

Further, America can't do SQUAT about development in Russia, and at this time, it appears to me, that the US would have big trouble even getting an offensive on in Iran, being so heavily involved in Iraq, as they are.

I don't think Iran will use their nukes, if they get them. Nukes are not a practical weapon, in other words, you don't USE them. You use them to make sure no one screws with you, the same way the superpowers used them during the cold war.

I agree that Iran's a bit crazy, but they are not stupid. If Iran were to utalize their nukes, there would be responses. It won't matter who uses nukes in the middle east, Iran will get the blame, and if the US doesn't use their nukes emediatly, Israel will. Israel has nukes, they've had them since 69, I think?

But then again, if Mossad finds any evidence that Iran's getting a nuke, that means, that Iran is about to make the nuke, Israel will probably bomb the shit out of the plants.

Further, the US is backing Saudi Arabia and a couple of other tyrannies in the Middle East, so it's not like they've got a clean concience.

I am NOT saying that Russia as of today is nice, I am not saying that Iran at this point of time is nice. But that is not relevant in this context.

Let's move on to what this discussion really is about.

Putin is de facto a dictator. No doubt. I would have to say that Russia is not as bad as the Soviet Union, for instance under Bresjnev, Andropov or Tsjernenko. But further, Putin is a stronger leader than all of the other former Soviet premiers.

What happens in Russia the next ten years, will be very interesting. Further, Russias position in the world, will change, I believe. Russia might be a super power in ten years time, rising to the power they had back in the 70s.

And I would like to add, that what Putin's doing, with starting an arms race, is sort of similar to the adresses of Reagan in the 80s.

Further, I find it ironic that Bush critizises Russia for spending more money on defenses, while the US is expanding at a higher level, spending more money than any other country in the world.

It's a bit funny, in my mind.

But to be honest, I am worried for the development in Russia over the next years.

[tigger]

Originally Posted by nomix

that the US would have big trouble even getting an offensive on in Iran, being so heavily involved in Iraq, as they are.

If the US gets into a war with Iran, there will be a draft or an impeachment. I have no doubt about that. Right now only about %1 of our nation is in the military, and almost 75% of those personnel aren't in Iraq or Afghanistan. If the gov't wasn't so inept at getting people behind a war, something they've not been able to do since WW2, we wouldn't have a problem in Iraq, because there would actually be enough troops to secure it.

Originally Posted by nomix

But then again, if Mossad finds any evidence that Iran's getting a nuke, that means, that Iran is about to make the nuke, Israel will probably bomb the shit out of the plants.

Lol, I agree. Israel would not allow a nuclear Iran.

Originally Posted by nomix

What happens in Russia the next ten years, will be very interesting. Further, Russias position in the world, will change, I believe. Russia might be a super power in ten years time, rising to the power they had back in the 70s.

Idk. If they attain superpower status I doubt it will be sustainable if things continue in thier current trend. Fertility is well below replacement levels, so they will need to attract a large amount of immigrants. If they fall back to a totally state run system I don't think they'll be able to keep up.

Originally Posted by nomix

Further, I find it ironic that Bush critizises Russia for spending more money on defenses, while the US is expanding at a higher level, spending more money than any other country in the world.

Well we are at war. Unfortunately.

[nomix]

Originally Posted by tigger

If the US gets into a war with Iran, there will be a draft or an impeachment. I have no doubt about that. Right now only about %1 of our nation is in the military, and almost 75% of those personnel aren't in Iraq or Afghanistan. If the gov't wasn't so inept at getting people behind a war, something they've not been able to do since WW2, we wouldn't have a problem in Iraq, because there would actually be enough troops to secure it.

Probably.

Idk. If they attain superpower status I doubt it will be sustainable if things continue in thier current trend. Fertility is well below replacement levels, so they will need to attract a large amount of immigrants. If they fall back to a totally state run system I don't think they'll be able to keep up.
Well we are at war. Unfortunately.

That is a very interesting perspective. There one billion Chinese, and close to China, there's something called Siberia. Siberia is populated by 20 mill, and has awsome amounts of natural reasources. Just that is quite interesting. But the BIG problem for Russia is summarized by one word. Vodka.

During the late 80s, in Murmansk, you could actually put a piece of copper, which their currency must be considered to be, and get a glass of Vodka. And everyone stood in the line, drinking from the same glass. Every leader since Bresjnev has dies cause of alcoholism.

Well, that's on the rise, and it will become a really big problem over the years.

[countvlad]

Russia is still one of the most backward countries in the civilised war. Most of russia (around 90%) is frozen all year and 10% of GNP is reported to have come from organised crime. The mafia run the slums in the cities and the police take bribes.

The assasination of some famous writers and critics of the russian state certainly suggests that Putin is removing his opponents. With an approval rating of around 80% putin has no need to be worried. He has been begged to serve a 3rd term even though this is contary to what the russian constitution says.

[nomix]

Well, as we've seen in the past in various countries, if you don't like constitutions, then change them.

[countvlad]

True and there is usually a certain amount of people (around 60%) who have to agree for the constitution to be changed. However putin has very high approval ratings so he can get a majourity.

[nomix]

That is true, but I think that Putin, with the power he has by this time, could probably pull it off anyway.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Putin's a very strong leader. One of the strongest Russia/the USSR has ever had.

That's good in some ways, but not as good in many, many other ways.

[Firecat]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070415/...sia_protest_dc

Anti-Putin protesters getting beat. Nice to see that the public (at least part of it) aren't afraid of him.

[trionic]

a bit from Nazi Germany too, Like Putin youth

[jetsetter]

50% Good News Is the Bad News in Russian Radio
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW, April 21 — At their first meeting with journalists since taking over Russia’s largest independent radio news network, the managers had startling news of their own: from now on, they said, at least 50 percent of the reports about Russia must be “positive.”

In addition, opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy, journalists employed by the network, Russian News Service, say they were told by the new managers, who are allies of the Kremlin.

How would they know what constituted positive news?

“When we talk of death, violence or poverty, for example, this is not positive,” said one editor at the station who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution. “If the stock market is up, that is positive. The weather can also be positive.”

In a darkening media landscape, radio news had been a rare bright spot. Now, the implementation of the “50 percent positive” rule at the Russian News Service leaves an increasingly small number of news outlets that are not managed by the Kremlin, directly or through the state national gas company, Gazprom, a major owner of media assets.

The three national television networks are already state controlled, though small-circulation newspapers generally remain independent.

This month alone, a bank loyal to President Vladimir V. Putin tightened its control of an independent television station, Parliament passed a measure banning “extremism” in politics and prosecutors have gone after individuals who post critical comments on Web chat rooms.

Parliament is also considering extending state control to Internet sites that report news, reflecting the growing importance of Web news as the country becomes more affluent and growing numbers of middle-class Russians acquire computers.

On Tuesday, the police raided the Educated Media Foundation, a nongovernmental group sponsored by United States and European donors that helps foster an independent news media. The police carried away documents and computers that were used as servers for the Web sites of similar groups. That brought down a Web site run by the Glasnost Defense Foundation, a media rights group, which published bulletins on violations of press freedoms.

“Russia is dropping off the list of countries that respect press freedoms,” said Boris Timoshenko, a spokesman for the foundation. “We have propaganda, not information.”

With this new campaign, seemingly aimed at tying up the loose ends before a parliamentary election in the fall that is being carefully stage-managed by the Kremlin, censorship rules in Russia have reached their most restrictive since the breakup of the Soviet Union, media watchdog groups say.

“This is not the U.S.S.R., when every print or broadcasting outlet was preliminarily censored,” Masha Lipman, a researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said in a telephone interview.

Instead, the tactic has been to impose state ownership on media companies and replace editors with those who are supporters of Mr. Putin — or offer a generally more upbeat report on developments in Russia these days.

The new censorship rules are often passed in vaguely worded measures and decrees that are ostensibly intended to protect the public.

Late last year, for example, the prosecutor general and the interior minister appeared before Parliament to ask deputies to draft legislation banning the distribution on the Web of “extremist” content — a catch phrase, critics say, for information about opponents of Mr. Putin.

On Friday, the Federal Security Service, a successor agency to the K.G.B., questioned Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion and opposition politician, for four hours regarding an interview he had given on the Echo of Moscow radio station. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Kasparov of expressing extremist views.

Parliament on Wednesday passed a law allowing for prison sentences of as long as three years for “vandalism” motivated by politics or ideology. Once again, vandalism is interpreted broadly, human rights groups say, including acts of civil disobedience. In a test case, Moscow prosecutors are pursuing a criminal case against a political advocate accused of posting critical remarks about a member of Parliament on a Web site, the newspaper Kommersant reported Friday.

State television news, meanwhile, typically offers only bland fare of official meetings. Last weekend, the state channels mostly ignored the violent dispersal of opposition protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Rossiya TV, for example, led its newscast last Saturday with Mr. Putin attending a martial arts competition, with the Belgian actor Jean-Claude Van Damme as his guest. On the streets of the capital that day, 54 people were beaten badly enough by the police that they sought medical care, Human Rights Watch said.

Rossiya and Channel One are owned by the state, while NTV was taken from a Kremlin critic in 2001 and now belongs to Gazprom. Last week, a St. Petersburg bank with ties to Mr. Putin increased its ownership stake in REN-TV, a channel that sometimes broadcasts critical reports, raising questions about that outlet’s continued independence.

The Russian News Service is owned by businesses loyal to the Kremlin, including Lukoil, though its exact ownership structure is not public. The owners had not meddled in editorial matters before, said Mikhail G. Baklanov, the former news editor, in a telephone interview.

The service provides news updates for a network of music-formatted radio stations, called Russian Radio, with seven million listeners, according to TNS Gallup, a ratings company.

Two weeks ago, the shareholders asked for the resignation of Mr. Baklanov. They appointed two new managers, Aleksandr Y. Shkolnik, director of children’s programming on state-owned Channel One, and Svevolod V. Neroznak, an announcer on Channel One. Both retained their positions at state television.

Mr. Shkolnik articulated the rule that 50 percent of the news must be positive, regardless of what cataclysm might befall Russia on any given day, according to the editor who was present at the April 10 meeting.

When in doubt about the positive or negative quality of a development, the editor said, “we should ask the new leadership.”

“We are having trouble with the positive part, believe me,” the editor said.

Mr. Shkolnik did not respond to a request for an interview. In an interview with Kommersant, he denied an on-air ban of opposition figures. He said Mr. Kasparov might be interviewed, but only if he agreed to refrain from extremist statements.

The editor at the news service said that the change had been explained as an effort to attract a larger, younger audience, but that many editorial employees had interpreted it as a tightening of political control ahead of the elections.

The station’s news report on Thursday noted the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Moscow metro. It closed with an upbeat item on how Russian trains are introducing a six-person sleeping compartment, instead of the usual four.

Already, listeners are grumbling about the “positive news” policy.

“I want fresh morning broadcasts and not to fall asleep,” one listener, who signed a posting on the station’s Web site as Sergei from Vladivostok, complained. “Maybe you’ve tortured RNS’s audience enough? There are just a few of us left. Down with the boring nonintellectual broadcasts!”

The change leaves Echo of Moscow, an irreverent and edgy news station that often provides a forum for opposition voices, as the only independent radio news outlet in Russia with a national reach.

And what does Aleksei Venediktov, the editor in chief of Echo of Moscow, think of the latest news from Russia?

“For Echo of Moscow, this is positive news,” Mr. Venediktov said. “We are a monopoly now. From the point of view of the country, it is negative news.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/wo...nt&oref=slogin