General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Meanwhile in Russia, Putin passes law against protests [View all]The Traveler
(5,632 posts)I regard Putin as an example of the sort of thing we ourselves are heading for.
Remember that study published a few weeks ago that argued (with considerable strength, I feel) that the American political system was now functioning as an oligarchy? The study compared policy preferences of the 1% vs the vast majority of the rest of us and the actual legislative output. Funny how the 1% seem to win most of those arguments ...
There are other indications of our descent into oligarchical rule.
Consider and contrast the treatment of the Occupy movement (brutally suppressed) vs. the kid gloves with which our government has handled the Cliven Bundy crowd. Makes ya go hmmmm ... doesn't it? Of course, the Occupiers weren't armed with AR-15s and did not place their wives and children between their firing positions and Federal law enforcement personnel ... still, Bundy walks around free and uncharged.
And he walks free while progressive journalist Barrett Brown languishes in prison for posting a link and (stupidly) venting his spleen. And let's not even consider the Swartz case, lest my blood pressure spike. I can offer a rather lengthly list of other examples.
One may infer from this that the welfare millionaire Bundy is not considered a credible threat to certain political interests, but that Occupy, Swartz and Brown were.
I note that earlier this week, LRAD (a military grade crowd dispersal system that uses intense sound) was deployed to disperse protesters in Detroit. Can't have folk interfering with the process of shutting off water supplies to people too poor to pay the bill. Golf courses need water. People don't.
Putin and the government he supervises is a much more developed oligarchy than the US ... but I think the reason why right wingers like Rudy Ghouliani sometimes sing his praises is because they not-so-secretly wish to exercise the same sort of power, for the same purposes, as Putin and his crowd. Would the Rethugs outlaw protests if they could? You betcha ... but they would make sure loopholes are established for Christian extremists.
So pile on Putin by all means. I have no regard for him. But don't ignore the drift towards oligarchy we have allowed in our own nation. We can't do much about Putin. We can do something about opposing and attenuating oligarchical power in our own nation.
Trav