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Do you really believe that western media care a single bit about free elections in Russia? The only reason they care about it is because The position of Russia

by usaphp 11y ago

Do you really believe that western media care a single bit about free elections in Russia? The only reason they care about it is because The position of Russia government does not match the western narrative.

ivan_gammel 11y ago
I did not say anything about my beliefs and it is not important WHY do they care about Russia. The only thing that is important, is the result - whether these critics are justified, whether they serve Russian interests or not. They do serve. If this was not someone's goal, shame on that guy, he failed. If it was, thanks to him, he did his job well.
- tomp 11y ago
  > whether they serve Russian interests or not. They do serve. You're assuming that free elections would benefit common Russians. They wouldn't. You're right about one thing, though: it wouldn't be Putin and his cronies siphoning all of Russia's wealth (resourceful citizens, natural resources, ...). It would be the western conglomerates.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    I do not know who "common Russians" are. However, I am Russian and I would like free elections, thank you.
    - usaphp 11y ago
      What makes you think that recent elections were not free? I am Russian and vast majority of people I know (like 90%) went to vote for Putin. I have one friend who was worried about elections not being free since he was voting for Prokhorov and really disliked Putin, so he signed up as an independent observer at one of the St.Petersburg voting booths, and he was shocked when he saw the amount of people that came to vote for Putin, he said it was like 9/10 people were voting for Putin after they counted vote papers, and he said there was no way to fake those votes at least at his booth. For some reason individuals in Russia think that if the candidate they were voting for did not win the elections - it means the elections were not free and somehow fake, but you have to understand that there are a vast majority of people in Russia who thought that Putin is a better candidate compared to Prokhorov and others
      - guard-of-terra 11y ago
        Last Duma elections were definitely rigged. For example, Moscow voted as two different cities: https://github.com/alamar/elegraph/blob/master/moscow.png https://github.com/alamar/elegraph/blob/master/moscow.png Note the two obvious centers of blobs. I'm yet to see any non-handwavy explanation of that phenomenon, and why it then disappeared for the next President elections.
        usaphp 11y ago
        Can you explain to me how this chart proves that "elections were DEFINITELY rigged"? I just don't understand what do you mean by "obvious centers of blobs" and how does it correlates with rigged elections?
        guard-of-terra 11y ago
        You would imagine, if Moscow is a city comprised of similar election districts, that election results in that districts will form a continuity. There would be a few outliers and a massive core of "typical" districts with similar results in them. We're even bound to get Gauss distribution of results or something similar. However, for Duma election, there's no continuity. There are two distinct profiles. There are a lot of districts with one kind of results, a lot of districts with different kind of results. As if it was two different cities, possibly in two different countries. Or if election results were rigged in a large subset of districts. Why would that be?
        usaphp 11y ago
        Moscow is a huge city (12 mln population). I don't think that different results in different parts of it give you any reason to call elections "DEFINITELY rigged", if you look at New York state (which has similar population size as Moscow) elections for 2012 [1], you will also see that each county has a pretty different kind of results, some counties were in full support of Obama, and some were in support of Romney, but that does not make it "definitely rigged" no? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_New_York,_2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
    - tomp 11y ago
      Don't get me wrong - I definitely hope and wish you get them. I also hope and wish they won't be abused by the West. And I hope I'm wrong with my pessimism. But I fear I'm right...
      - guard-of-terra 11y ago
        In this world, everybody is trying to abuse everybody else all the time at the background and foreground. One just should not use "external abuse" as reason to act (or not).
  - ivan_gammel 11y ago
    The historical data does not support your theory. We all know that some of the countries now belonging to the "Western world", some time ago were neither democracies, nor successful free market economies. Now we all know about German, Korean and Japanese multinationals. Adopting the "Western" way does not mean surrendering and losing political and economical sovereignity. There were trade wars and political conflicts between Western powers, they all play their own games, they just have agreed on the way of conduct for them.
    - tomp 11y ago
      I see Germany, Korea and, to a letter extent, Japan, as completely surrendered to US interests.
alkonaut 11y ago
> Ohh, please stop, do you really believe that western media care a single bit about free elections in Russia? I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. Why wouldn't we? Since it would be a missive influence on our lives, of course western media should care! A government elected by popular vote would be stabilizing to the region (and the world) since it wouldn't have the same need of maintaining poopularity by inventing an external enemy (and at regular intervals, creating one, if necessary). > "does not match the western narrative" What is the "western narrative" really? I suppose one historical "western narrative" is that the Soviet Union was dissolved in the early 90's, and that the borders drawn then are those of sovereign states who each have a choice of trade/military alliance. I'm getting increasingly worried that this isn't the historical narrative tought in some schools in parts of the former union.
- usaphp 11y ago
  > I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. No, they will be delighted to see the candidate they (westerns) like more - win, they won't care who most people really voted and supported in Russia. Putin won on the recent elections and I did not notice any "delighted west media" after that, even thought as I said in a separate comment - vast majority of the people in Russia actually did support Putin vs other candidates. It's hard to see from the outside, but most people in Russia are actually supporting Putin, I think the reason is that those who were against Putin have a better reach to international media since they speak english and are more socially active thus from the outside it looks like most of the population dislikes Putin, which in reality is not true.
  - alkonaut 11y ago
    I don't doubt Putin has massive support, but in a country without free press or free elections popularity says nothing. Putin doesn't win elections, he arranges them. North Koreas leaders have traditionally enjoyed a 100% support, and it might even be genuine support, but it doesn't mean anything. The media climate in Russia isn't yet North Korean of course, but it's far from a climate in which elections would be called fair. https://index.rsf.org/ https://index.rsf.org/ (You really don't want to rank with Belarus and Congo on the freedom of press index). To win a real election you make sure you have freedom of press, then you have an election overseen by internationally recognized observers such as the oecd. The fact that Putin is popular despite rapidly growing deficits and receding standard of living (at the same time as massive military spending) is pretty telling.

by usaphp 11y ago

ivan_gammel 11y ago

I did not say anything about my beliefs and it is not important WHY do they care about Russia. The only thing that is important, is the result - whether these critics are justified, whether they serve Russian interests or not. They do serve. If this was not someone's goal, shame on that guy, he failed. If it was, thanks to him, he did his job well.

tomp 11y ago
> whether they serve Russian interests or not. They do serve. You're assuming that free elections would benefit common Russians. They wouldn't. You're right about one thing, though: it wouldn't be Putin and his cronies siphoning all of Russia's wealth (resourceful citizens, natural resources, ...). It would be the western conglomerates.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  I do not know who "common Russians" are. However, I am Russian and I would like free elections, thank you.
  - usaphp 11y ago
    What makes you think that recent elections were not free? I am Russian and vast majority of people I know (like 90%) went to vote for Putin. I have one friend who was worried about elections not being free since he was voting for Prokhorov and really disliked Putin, so he signed up as an independent observer at one of the St.Petersburg voting booths, and he was shocked when he saw the amount of people that came to vote for Putin, he said it was like 9/10 people were voting for Putin after they counted vote papers, and he said there was no way to fake those votes at least at his booth. For some reason individuals in Russia think that if the candidate they were voting for did not win the elections - it means the elections were not free and somehow fake, but you have to understand that there are a vast majority of people in Russia who thought that Putin is a better candidate compared to Prokhorov and others
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      Last Duma elections were definitely rigged. For example, Moscow voted as two different cities: https://github.com/alamar/elegraph/blob/master/moscow.png https://github.com/alamar/elegraph/blob/master/moscow.png Note the two obvious centers of blobs. I'm yet to see any non-handwavy explanation of that phenomenon, and why it then disappeared for the next President elections.
      - usaphp 11y ago
        Can you explain to me how this chart proves that "elections were DEFINITELY rigged"? I just don't understand what do you mean by "obvious centers of blobs" and how does it correlates with rigged elections?
        guard-of-terra 11y ago
        You would imagine, if Moscow is a city comprised of similar election districts, that election results in that districts will form a continuity. There would be a few outliers and a massive core of "typical" districts with similar results in them. We're even bound to get Gauss distribution of results or something similar. However, for Duma election, there's no continuity. There are two distinct profiles. There are a lot of districts with one kind of results, a lot of districts with different kind of results. As if it was two different cities, possibly in two different countries. Or if election results were rigged in a large subset of districts. Why would that be?
        usaphp 11y ago
        Moscow is a huge city (12 mln population). I don't think that different results in different parts of it give you any reason to call elections "DEFINITELY rigged", if you look at New York state (which has similar population size as Moscow) elections for 2012 [1], you will also see that each county has a pretty different kind of results, some counties were in full support of Obama, and some were in support of Romney, but that does not make it "definitely rigged" no? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_New_York,_2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
  - tomp 11y ago
    Don't get me wrong - I definitely hope and wish you get them. I also hope and wish they won't be abused by the West. And I hope I'm wrong with my pessimism. But I fear I'm right...
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      In this world, everybody is trying to abuse everybody else all the time at the background and foreground. One just should not use "external abuse" as reason to act (or not).
- ivan_gammel 11y ago
  The historical data does not support your theory. We all know that some of the countries now belonging to the "Western world", some time ago were neither democracies, nor successful free market economies. Now we all know about German, Korean and Japanese multinationals. Adopting the "Western" way does not mean surrendering and losing political and economical sovereignity. There were trade wars and political conflicts between Western powers, they all play their own games, they just have agreed on the way of conduct for them.
  - tomp 11y ago
    I see Germany, Korea and, to a letter extent, Japan, as completely surrendered to US interests.

alkonaut 11y ago

> Ohh, please stop, do you really believe that western media care a single bit about free elections in Russia? I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. Why wouldn't we? Since it would be a missive influence on our lives, of course western media should care! A government elected by popular vote would be stabilizing to the region (and the world) since it wouldn't have the same need of maintaining poopularity by inventing an external enemy (and at regular intervals, creating one, if necessary). > "does not match the western narrative" What is the "western narrative" really? I suppose one historical "western narrative" is that the Soviet Union was dissolved in the early 90's, and that the borders drawn then are those of sovereign states who each have a choice of trade/military alliance. I'm getting increasingly worried that this isn't the historical narrative tought in some schools in parts of the former union.

usaphp 11y ago
> I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. No, they will be delighted to see the candidate they (westerns) like more - win, they won't care who most people really voted and supported in Russia. Putin won on the recent elections and I did not notice any "delighted west media" after that, even thought as I said in a separate comment - vast majority of the people in Russia actually did support Putin vs other candidates. It's hard to see from the outside, but most people in Russia are actually supporting Putin, I think the reason is that those who were against Putin have a better reach to international media since they speak english and are more socially active thus from the outside it looks like most of the population dislikes Putin, which in reality is not true.
- alkonaut 11y ago
  I don't doubt Putin has massive support, but in a country without free press or free elections popularity says nothing. Putin doesn't win elections, he arranges them. North Koreas leaders have traditionally enjoyed a 100% support, and it might even be genuine support, but it doesn't mean anything. The media climate in Russia isn't yet North Korean of course, but it's far from a climate in which elections would be called fair. https://index.rsf.org/ https://index.rsf.org/ (You really don't want to rank with Belarus and Congo on the freedom of press index). To win a real election you make sure you have freedom of press, then you have an election overseen by internationally recognized observers such as the oecd. The fact that Putin is popular despite rapidly growing deficits and receding standard of living (at the same time as massive military spending) is pretty telling.