More Bad News for Russia

[Muzh]

That's not what I said.  I referenced Solzhenitsyn who spoke of democratic governments at various points in different parts of Russia.  I do not consider the post Soviet settlement as democratic nor did I say that the history rivaled Anglo-American traditions.

Really, what the hell did you say?

[JayH]

Increased sanctions against Russia are being formulated. Putin has persisted in thinking he can bluff all his indiscretions out--but gradually the western nations are getting a grasp on the reality of the Russian anti world attitudes and behaviour.
The sanctions are biting-- but they need to be much wider and more restrictive on all Russians-- it is the 'all" part that must wake up to Putin and his cronies mismanagement of Russia-- and it is the "all" that will suffer from the sanctions. Time for ordinary Russians to take their head out of the sand-- and start realising they are culpable.
Regardless of that-- i would really target the wealthy in Russia( and wealthy Russians anywhere!) and Russian companies everywhere to increase the pressure on Putin & kremlin cronies.
West Threatens New Sanctions Against Russia
U.S. and European policymakers are meeting to craft new restrictions, but it's unclear what Russian action would prompt them.
US and European leaders are threatening further sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine, but it’s unclear what measures are on the table and what Russian actions would prompt further restrictions.

Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said Wednesday that U.S. policymakers started “intensive consultations” this week with European leaders on sanctions “should Russia continue fueling the fire in the east of Ukraine or in other parts of the country,” fail to implement a recent cease-fire, or grab more land.

“We have shown through our sanctions on investment that, if you bite off a piece of another country, it will dry up in your mouth,” Nuland said at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. Nuland said State Department and Treasury Department sanctions officials are still in Europe for meetings on the new measures. “Our unity with Europe remains the core of our policy toward this crisis.”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/04/west-threatens-new-sanctions-against-russia-merkel-cameron-putin-minsk/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=%2AEditors%20Picks&utm_campaign=2015_EditorsPicks_PROMO_3_TAMU_Bush_School

[AkMike]

What has changed in a year occupation of Crimea

After the illegal annexation of the Crimea peninsula on Russia significantly increased food prices, collapsed turnover in ports and almost ends tourists, besides the Russians.

This is according to analysis conducted by the activists 'words and deeds. "

After the occupation it became clear that without Ukraine Crimea can not exist.

From the mainland to the peninsula supplied products and 80% water, 85% of electricity 100% of telecommunication services (telephone and Internet).

Crimea there was a 60% subsidy from Kyiv, and without regard to Ukraine peninsula remained virtually transport blockade as enter, leave only through ferry in Kerch, which is not designed for this amount of vehicle traffic.

Last year in the Crimea at 45-180% more expensive staple foods.

The composition of the flow of tourists after the occupation has changed dramatically. Previously on holiday with Ukraine was getting nearly 4 million tourists a year, but now this figure fell to 0.4 million.

Instead, increased by 2 million of tourists from Russia.
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2015/03/4/7060493/

[AkMike]

White Wash Anyone?

Stalin wiped from Soviet Gulag prison museum

The director of a Russian museum at a Stalin-era prison camp says local officials have taken over the site and removed references to the Soviet dictator's crimes.

"Of course it's a political move," Viktor Shmyrov told the BBC.

Perm-36, in Russia's Ural mountains, is the only surviving camp with buildings dating back to the Stalinist terror.

A non-governmental group has been managing the museum, but is disbanding after arguments with Perm officials.

Millions of Soviet citizens were sent to labour camps in the notorious Gulag system, or shot, during Joseph Stalin's hardline communist rule. The worst repressions took place in the 1930s.

Portraits of Stalin - taboo after the scale of his crimes was revealed - have become more common since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Surveys indicate that many Russians now regard Stalin as a hero.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31711287

[jone]

If every day Russians view Stalin as a hero, after wiping out whole sectors of the population and killing his own citizens by the millions in gulags, how benign Putin must be viewed by these same people and how much a hero he must seem after taking action.

[Shadow]

Thousands of years under Tsars, the almost 80 under Soviet dictators. The only concept of freedom they have came in the "wild west" 90s when Oligarchs and politicians robbed anything of value, pensioners starved, the currency plunged overnight, and working people were months without paychecks and when paid finally were given vodka and cigarettes in lieu of currency.

Thus, their brief experience with "democracy" was not only short-lived, but very traumatic. Thus they value stability over what they perceive as the only alternative.

I believe you need to rsearch more on this subject.
It is too easy to accept our Hollywood version of the days past where every nobleman is a tyrant that suppresses people. This is as realistic as believing everyone considered the earth to be flat.
In reality for important decisions the people of the town were called in order to give support to the suggested plans. They had the power to overturn them, making it a kind of democratic system.

[Shadow]

If every day Russians view Stalin as a hero, after wiping out whole sectors of the population and killing his own citizens by the millions in gulags, how benign Putin must be viewed by these same people and how much a hero he must seem after taking action.

Every day Russians do not see Stalin as hero, however as someone who did both good and (very) bad things.

[Boethius]

I read this week, on the closing of Perm-36 as a museum, that 52% of Russians have favorable views of Stalin.
 
Part of the problem with Russia (and Ukraine) is that communist party records were sealed by those who had an interest in ensuring the truth remained hidden.  There was no "de communization" of the country.  The same pigs that ran, and ruined, the country for 7 decades remain in control.  Hence, the lack of transparency.

[cc3]

I read this week, on the closing of Perm-36 as a museum, that 52% of Russians have favorable views of Stalin.
 
Part of the problem with Russia (and Ukraine) is that communist party records were sealed by those who had an interest in ensuring the truth remained hidden.  There was no "de communization" of the country.  The same pigs that ran, and ruined, the country for 7 decades remain in control.  Hence, the lack of transparency.

+1000!!!

[mendeleyev]

I believe you need to rsearch more on this subject.
It is too easy to accept our Hollywood version of the days past where every nobleman is a tyrant that suppresses people. This is as realistic as believing everyone considered the earth to be flat.
In reality for important decisions the people of the town were called in order to give support to the suggested plans. They had the power to overturn them, making it a kind of democratic system.

No, you need to wake up from dreaming. I have little idea of what Hollywood portrayed about that period. But I know, from first hand experience, what Russia was like in those days. Perhaps you were too sheltered to remember when ducks virtually disappeared from the Moscow river, and pensioners took anything of value from their apartments to sell on street corners.

Go ahead and keep believing the earth to be flat. I pity you.

[Boethius]

Is Shadow referring to a commie period, or to the tsarist past?
 
 

[Shadow]

No, you need to wake up from dreaming. I have little idea of what Hollywood portrayed about that period. But I know, from first hand experience, what Russia was like in those days. Perhaps you were too sheltered to remember when ducks virtually disappeared from the Moscow river, and pensioners took anything of value from their apartments to sell on street corners.

Go ahead and keep believing the earth to be flat. I pity you.

I did not know you were that old.... did you also meet the dinosaurs? 

[AC]

I believe you need to rsearch more on this subject.
It is too easy to accept our Hollywood version of the days past where every nobleman is a tyrant that suppresses people. This is as realistic as believing everyone considered the earth to be flat.
In reality for important decisions the people of the town were called in order to give support to the suggested plans. They had the power to overturn them, making it a kind of democratic system.

Kind of...

[Shadow]

I read this week, on the closing of Perm-36 as a museum, that 52% of Russians have favorable views of Stalin.
 
Part of the problem with Russia (and Ukraine) is that communist party records were sealed by those who had an interest in ensuring the truth remained hidden.  There was no "de communization" of the country.  The same pigs that ran, and ruined, the country for 7 decades remain in control.  Hence, the lack of transparency.

Incorrect. MrsShadow has proven to me that there was a disclosure of Stalin´s deeds right after his death.
The pigs changed, especially the ones giving gifts that today are seen as never given....

However as with the people caring less about the Holocaust, the atrocities of Stalin are also fading from memory. What remains is a memory of a strong leader who laid the base of Russia as a world power.
That this cost the lives of millions within all of the Soviet territory is tragically overlooked.

However many stories about support for Stalin are exaggerated. For instance the reason he finished runner-up in the election of ´Most important Russian´ was not due to real support but due to an internet hype to mess with the result of the election.

The support must also be seen in a wider context that is hard to explain for Americans. In Russia there is much les of a black-white perspective, meaning that nobody is declared all good or all evil. Instead the perspective is that all people are capable of both good and evil, and will do both based on what they in their position feel as the right decision. This makes it a lot easier to accept the merits of Stalin een without overlooking his atrocities.
When asked most Russians will know Stalin was a paranoid mass-murdering tyrant and anyone who was called before him would not know if it was to be given praise or to be sentenced to death. At the same time they also know Stalin ensured that the work of the Revolution was continued, and got the victory in the east front of WW2.
In Russian perspective that makes him a strong leader, which means he is given some merit.

[Shadow]

Kind of...

Indeed. Our idea of democracy is anyhow extremely warped.
Those in Rome and Athens who laid the foundations did not allow every person to vote. Voting was kept to citizens, and citizens were the land owners, rich merchants and those decorated in war.
A very limited group that if nowadays would be the only ones voting woud not be seen as a democracy at all.

So any system where the normal citizens were able to cast their opinon on important matters should be seen as a democratic influence, as in Rome or Athens only the land owner would have had a ´demoratic´vote.

[mendeleyev]

Shadow:

I did not know you were that old.... did you also meet the dinosaurs?

Why yes, they were a very nice family! But alas, they moved across town and our Friday night chess games just faded away with time. 

[AC]

Indeed. Our idea of democracy is anyhow extremely warped.
Those in Rome and Athens who laid the foundations did not allow every person to vote. Voting was kept to citizens, and citizens were the land owners, rich merchants and those decorated in war.
A very limited group that if nowadays would be the only ones voting woud not be seen as a democracy at all.

So any system where the normal citizens were able to cast their opinon on important matters should be seen as a democratic influence, as in Rome or Athens only the land owner would have had a ´democratic´vote.

Well apparently you don't know that I agree with an ancient Greek who said that "democracy" is the weakest form of government, and if we have one I would much prefer what you described above.  But that's just me.

[Boethius]

Incorrect. MrsShadow has proven to me that there was a disclosure of Stalin´s deeds right after his death.
The pigs changed, especially the ones giving gifts that today are seen as never given....

However as with the people caring less about the Holocaust, the atrocities of Stalin are also fading from memory. What remains is a memory of a strong leader who laid the base of Russia as a world power.

The pigs I was referring to were not the ones in power in Stalin's time, but at the demise of the USSR.  That includes the nomenklatura which still rules both Russia and Ukraine.
 
Not everything about Stalin's crimes was disclosed.  Moreover, the systems he either inherited or created remained in place.  Individuals were still sent to gulags, with the last prisoner in a gulag dying in 1985.

That this cost the lives of millions within all of the Soviet territory is
tragically overlooked.

However many stories about support for Stalin are exaggerated. For instance the reason he finished runner-up in the election of ´Most important Russian´ was not due to real support but due to an internet hype to mess with the result of the election.

None of which changes the fact that a majority of Russians view him favorably. 

The support must also be seen in a wider context that is hard to explain for Americans. In Russia there is much les of a black-white perspective, meaning that nobody is declared all good or all evil. Instead the perspective is that all people are capable of both good and evil, and will do both based on what they in their position feel as the right decision. This makes it a lot easier to accept the merits of Stalin een without overlooking his atrocities.

I am not American.  Moreover, Americans do not have "black and white" perspectives on issues, no matter how much sophisticated Europeans wish to believe they know so much better than the hicks across the pond.

When asked most Russians will know Stalin was a paranoid mass-murdering tyrant and anyone who was called before him would not know if it was to be given praise or to be sentenced to death. At the same time they also know Stalin ensured that the work of the Revolution was continued, and got the victory in the east front of WW2.
In Russian perspective that makes him a strong leader, which means he is given some merit.

A revolution which never had mass support, one in which most of the tied tested and true were executed by Stalin, and as for WWII, read reports of the earliest days.  Stalin was on the floor, unable to function.  It was Tsarist trained generals who saved the USSR, and an appeal to pre revolutionary symbols, such as the church, and a promise (broken) to change the system after the war.

[Shadow]

Well apparently you don't know that I agree with an ancient Greek who said that "democracy" is the weakest form of government, and if we have one I would much prefer what you described above.  But that's just me.

I agree with you on that, unfortunately only Switzerland has this system nowadays as far as I know.

[AC]

It seems to me that an attempt to rehabilitate Stalin is most the work of V. Putin.  Many educated Russians are probably perfectly aware of what his true nature was, but likely not the extent of it.

[Shadow]

The pigs I was referring to were not the ones in power in Stalin's time, but at the demise of the USSR.  That includes the nomenklatura which still rules both Russia and Ukraine.

My bad, and you are correct in that perspective.

Not everything about Stalin's crimes was disclosed.  Moreover, the systems he either inherited or created remained in place.  Individuals were still sent to gulags, with the last prisoner in a gulag dying in 1985.None of which changes the fact that a majority of Russians view him favorably. 
A revolution which never had mass support, one in which most of the tied tested and true were executed by Stalin, and as for WWII, read reports of the earliest days.  Stalin was on the floor, unable to function.  It was Tsarist trained generals who saved the USSR, and an appeal to pre revolutionary symbols, such as the church, and a promise (broken) to change the system after the war.

I largely agree with you, except that when I last checked there was n majority support. Might have changed over the last few years though.

I am not American.  Moreover, Americans do not have "black and white" perspectives on issues, no matter how much sophisticated Europeans wish to believe they know so much better than the hicks across the pond.

Canadians are resrve- Americans
As for black and white perspective it is far more prevalent as someone close to the fire might be able to see.
That is not from knowing better but from seeing it in many forms. Including the introduction of the dualistic models in the education in Europe.
In most areas (and not just the movies) there is a dualistic system. It is embedded in politics as well.
While it is far from an absolute, there is far more dualism on the American continent as on the European.
In Asia on the other hand people simply think what they are told to...

[SANDRO43]

Those in Rome and Athens who laid the foundations did not allow every person to vote. Voting was kept to citizens, and citizens were the land owners, rich merchants and those decorated in war.

Your knowledge of ancient voting rights is way off .

Athens, no census/military limitations:

participating citizens voted directly on legislation and executive bills. Participation was not open to all residents: to vote one had to be an adult, male citizen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

The Roman Kingdom and later Republic had a more complicated voting system:

When Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, reformed the tribal system of Rome, giving the vote to men who had not been members of the three original tribes, he increased the number of tribes and assigned people to them on the basis of geographic location rather than kinship ties. There were at least two main reasons for the extension of the suffrage, to increase the tax body and to add to the rolls of young men suitable for the military. Over the next couple of centuries more tribes were added until there were 35 tribes in 241 B.C. The number of tribes remained stable and so new citizens were assigned to one of the 35 no matter where they lived.

Initially wealthy Romans had much more 'weight', particularly in the Senate, but less after the office of Tribunus plebis was instituted in 494 BC after the powerless Roman plebs left the city en masse in protest. This magistrature, reserved to plebeians and elected by them only, became increasingly powerful in later years, to the point of having veto powers over Senate laws if deemed detrimental to plebeian interests.

In conclusion, Roman voting rights were NOT reserved to the rich.

As Roman citizenship was granted to newly acquired territories, so was the right to vote. However, if one did not happen to be in Rome when an election was convened, he could hardly exercise his right .

[Anotherkiwi]

Including the introduction of the dualistic models in the education in Europe.
In most areas (and not just the movies) there is a dualistic system. It is embedded in politics as well.
While it is far from an absolute, there is far more dualism on the American continent as on the European.

What do you mean, Shadow?  In politics I presume that you mean Republicans v Democrats, Conservative v Labour, etc, but how does education fit into this?

In Asia on the other hand people simply think what they are told to...

Don't generalise so much - Asia extends from Turkey to Japan.  Last time I looked there were only a handful of countries where that might conceivably apply, North Korea being an obvious example.

[AkMike]

U.S. Sanctions Over Ukraine Hit Two Russian Banks Hardest

Bank Rossiya, SMP Bank main targets; even Paypal accounts frozen
 
WASHINGTON—Banks controlled by three billionaire friends of Russian President  Vladimir Putin  have seen about $640 million of assets frozen in the U.S. as retaliation for the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine, according to U.S. government records.

The figures, not previously reported, show the surprising extent to which the economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. have pinched the pockets of some of Russia’s most politically connected firms.

Hit the hardest is Bank Rossiya, which had at least $572 million blocked in U.S. accounts, according to records released to The Wall Street Journal by the Treasury Department. That is equivalent to roughly 10% of its 2013 assets, at today’s exchange rate.

The St. Petersburg bank, whose founder Yuri Kovalchuk is alleged by the U.S. to be one of Mr. Putin’s “cashiers,” was described by the Obama administration as a personal bank for senior Russian officials.

Also hit is SMP Bank, majority-owned by Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, two brothers who are childhood friends and former judo partners of Mr. Putin. They have amassed some of Russia’s biggest fortunes, built in part on lucrative contracts with the state and state-owned companies.

Their bank has had at least $65 million—equal to about 2% of 2013 assets—blocked across dozens of accounts in U.S. financial institutions, Treasury documents show.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-sanctions-over-ukraine-hit-two-russian-banks-hardest-1425597150

[AkMike]

Reports are in about Ukraine mining bridges to Crimea to stop all traffic in case of an attack. Roads are being dug up leading to Transisteria border also. All local border stations to Russia are closed.

http://www.ukrinform.ua/eng/news/ukraine_closes_local_border_traffic_with_russia_329534

http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/05/4144