Dem Czars, Dem Czars, Dem [Beat] Authoritarian Czars . . .
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Authoritarianism | Dictatorship | Dmitri Medvedev | Foreign Affairs | Geopolitical Nightmares | Vladimir Putin — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
How does one say "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" in Russian? Understand that I ask because of this:
The Kremlin is planning to falsify the results of this Sunday's presidential election in Russia by compelling millions of public sector workers to vote and by fraudulently boosting the official turnout after polls close, the Guardian has learned.
Governors, regional officials, and even headteachers have been instructed to deliver a landslide majority for Dmitry Medvedev - Russia's first deputy prime minister, whom President Vladimir Putin has endorsed to be his successor.
Officials have been told they need to secure a 68% to 70% turnout in this weekend's poll - with around 72% casting votes for Medvedev. However, independent analysts believe the real turnout will be much lower - with between 25% and 50% of the electorate taking part.
The Kremlin is planning to bridge the gap by the use of widespread fraud, diplomats and other independent sources have told the Guardian. Local election officials are preparing to stuff ballot boxes once the polls have closed with unused ballots, they believe, with regional officials also giving inflated tallies to Russia's central election commission.
Additionally, public sector workers including teachers, students, and doctors have been told to vote on Sunday or risk losing their jobs or university places. Parents have even been warned at parents' meetings that if they fail to turn up their children might suffer at school.
Read on . . .
Once again, the increasing lack of transparency in Russia should worry us. Russia cannot match the United States as a military power but it is no pushover and with increasing Russian imperialism, the efforts being undertaken by the Russian leadership to put the kibosh on any semblance of democracy threaten to take the country closer to the Hermit Kingdom side of the governmental openness spectrum.
Hey, sing it with me. Let's make sure you know: The lack of transparency is connected to the [beat] greater miscalculations concerning Russian intentions. The greater miscalculations are connected to the [beat] strategic errors. The strategic errors are connected to the [beat] cataclysmic events. And the cataclysmic events are connected to the [beat] needless loss of life.
Not a catchy tune, I know. But it may get played a lot if Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev get to insert coins in the geopolitical jukebox without someone objecting to the particular brand of inspiration Putin and Medvedev draw from the Terpsichorean Muse.
(Thanks to Jeff Emanuel for e-mailing this story.)
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Dem Czars, Dem Czars, Dem [Beat] Authoritarian Czars . . . 7 Comments (0 topical, 7 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Seems this is something they learned from us.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
It says so, right here ...
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Gone 2500 years, still not PC.
As I was reading this I felt a shutter in my spine as I thought about the U.S. in perspective. The NEA, the DNC, Obama, are these not the American equivilants of the " public sector workers including teachers", the Kremlin, and "insert czar here". We need a solid 90 degree right turn in this countries politics and culture or we are doomed to lose our nation as we know it.
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
I don't think that hyperbolic stories concerning "Fascism in America" bear very much resemblance to the truth. The Democrats are certainly not well-liked or well-organized enough to do anything to the magnitude that Putin is doing over in Russia.
My main concern with the Dems is that we will have less of a leadership role (and less competence) in foreign affairs, that misguided economic policies will lead to a poorer US, and that special interest groups will be given more power to wield.
If the Republican party could not sustain it's Permanent Majority, there is no way that the Dem's could even come close.
This really is the new modus operandi for post-Soviet states (and others) transparently attempting to fool the UN, the Journal of Democracy, OSCE, etc.
Everyone knows their role, nothing necessarily "coerced" or telegraphed (though they stupidly telegraphed something here), but everyone realizing the consequences.
(-2.75, -4.92)