Putin's putsch

While the world's attention is largely turned elsewhere, Ed Morrissey reminds us that times are changing in Russia - and not for the better.

With no opposition left in the Duma, it is not hard to imagine what Putin will do next. He will ask for, and receive, the removal of restrictions that keep him from running for another term of office. Putin will make himself president-for-life and continue eliminating the regional power structures that had acted as a check on federal power.... Russian democracy is disappearing before our eyes.

Comments

[william]

There is an old axiom that states that a society deserves its leaders. It appears that this is the case in Iraq, could it be true in Russia. What you did not mention was that it appears that Putin or his cronies are having journalists killed for speaking up. I think I read that 13 have died suspicious deaths. Russians wanted a democracy overnight and it backfired on them. Gorbachev warned them this would happen but they paid him no heed. I read Gorbachev’s book and he had a plan for Russia to be a socialist nation like Germany and other European nations. This man deserves much credit for helping to dismantle communism as he saw it did not work.

Does this mean we deserve Cheney and Bush? Oh I forgot do we deserve that military genius Rumsfeld. The hardest thing for an individual or a nation to do is look at itself as the problem; it is far easier to blame our elected leaders. As a consultant myself and other consultants called this the “organizational salute” when we cross our arms and point in both directions right and left but not at ourselves. In twenty years of consulting I never once had a CEO call me into his or her office and say, “I need to know how I need to change” it was always we have a problem and could you fix my employees.

This paradigm effect is easy to see in the ultra skeptics (disbelievers) and the ultra religious (believers) neither of them have a clue that they suffer from something called paradigm paralysis. As Joel Barker would say when out paradigm becomes thee paradigm we have just entered the realm of paradigm paralysis. Introspection can be a very uncomfortable endeavor.

[Savvas Socratous]

Well then, we only have to wait for another year to see if this man's prediction will come true. Personally I believe that Putin will retire and control things from behind the scenes.

One should not forget that millions of Russians like it the way it is and for millions of Russians their standard of living has increased during Putin's time - between having a refrigerator and democracy I know what most people would choose.And the better you have it, the least likely it is to get out in the streets and demand anything.

[william]

This is a good point switching from Russia’s brand of communism to our form of capitalism was a shock and a hardship to many Russians. I understand many American consultants were hired to help with this transition. What most people in America do not realize is that we don’t have pure capitalism but managed capitalism. And even our managed capitalism is appearing to be eliminating the middle class. It should be interesting to see what kind of society and economy we have without this middle class.