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Pussy Riots singer found

People disappearing, living in work camps with abusive conditions, not being able to protest, personal freedoms being taken...

Progressive, Russia is not. I guess I expected more from a country that decided communism was a failing enterprise.

Russia?! No freedom?!

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
Pussy Riots singer found

People disappearing, living in work camps with abusive conditions, not being able to protest, personal freedoms being taken...

Progressive, Russia is not. I guess I expected more from a country that decided communism was a failing enterprise.

sounds like Russia decided to all of a sudden implement OUR wonderul freedoms of speech and great liberties we have here in the good old police states of the USA. "sarcasm"

and just when i thought russia was becoming more and more a free country like we were suppose to according to the consitution "which our freedoms got taken away from us on dec 25th 1913 when the majority of the members of congress were out on vacation spending time on the holidays with their familys when the bankers had their way and had the federal reserve act was passed giving us the evil monster the federal reserve-thats when WE became slaves of a socialist country. and a dictatership was installed in our country.

I would say Russia has decided to follow our wonderful alleged freedoms we have here in the states.

were such a free country here in the states policiticans commit crimes everyday that we go to jail for,police are tazering people for the littliest and tiniest things,our dictater Obomination praised the chicago police force this past summer for their nazi gestapo tactics of beating up protesters protesting NATO's illegal occupation in the mid east,we have the military go door to doors in the neighboorhoods for just ONE man they are hunting for disregarding the fact thats why you have a police force to do that work,yep i would say russia has deciced to follow our great and wonderful so called freedoms we have here in good old nazi USA.

Originally posted by Mr Parker
sounds like Russia decided to all of a sudden implement OUR wonderul freedoms of speech and great liberties we have here in the good old police states of the USA. "sarcasm"

and just when i thought russia was becoming more and more a free country like we were suppose to according to the consitution "which our freedoms got taken away from us on dec 25th 1913 when the majority of the members of congress were out on vacation spending time on the holidays with their familys when the bankers had their way and had the federal reserve act was passed giving us the evil monster the federal reserve-thats when WE became slaves of a socialist country. and a dictatership was installed in our country.

I would say Russia has decided to follow our wonderful alleged freedoms we have here in the states.

were such a free country here in the states policiticans commit crimes everyday that we go to jail for,police are tazering people for the littliest and tiniest things,our dictater Obomination praised the chicago police force this past summer for their nazi gestapo tactics of beating up protesters protesting NATO's illegal occupation in the mid east,we have the military go door to doors in the neighboorhoods for just ONE man they are hunting for disregarding the fact thats why you have a police force to do that work,yep i would say russia has deciced to follow our great and wonderful so called freedoms we have here in good old nazi USA.

http://www.troll.me/images/ancient-aliens-guy/lol-wut.jpg

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
Pussy Riots singer found

People disappearing, living in work camps with abusive conditions, not being able to protest, personal freedoms being taken...

Progressive, Russia is not. I guess I expected more from a country that decided communism was a failing enterprise.

Your expectations were incredibly naive.

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
http://www.troll.me/images/ancient-aliens-guy/lol-wut.jpg

great rebutalls to the facts,what a great debater.so typical,when cornered and cant face facts,evade and post childish gifs.

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
http://www.troll.me/images/ancient-aliens-guy/lol-wut.jpg

I watch that show all the time, and this guy cracks me up. See what freedom of speech gets you.

Originally posted by Mr Parker
great rebutalls to the facts,what a great debater.so typical,when cornered and cant face facts,evade and post childish gifs.

1. It's a JPEG.

2. Your post was barely coherent and I saw no proof of any kind, so it just came out looking like someone had eaten a conspiracy theory thread and puked up the remains.

Originally posted by ArtificialGlory
Your expectations were incredibly naive.

It's naive to expect progress? I realize Russia has never had a great track record in this regard, but my intention was to bring up just how bad things are under Putin, and that they will probably get worse. I posted another thread where Russian schools and officials were banning Halloween for being "unChristian".

I don't know why, but I've never been under the impression that Russia was ever on the up-and-up in regards to rights and freedoms. A little boost from the USSR's collapse, sure, but never anything coming close to what we all get a boner for taking as a given.


Putin's Russia just seems like Russia being Russia again. Welcome back, comrade!

It seems like a lot of regression. And considering the Cold War that some of us here actually lived during, that's not a good thing.

That's what I'd be worried about. Not so much that freedom is being taken away from the people, but that the Russian government is the kind that thinks nothing of doing so in this day and age. Give them a little time and they could develop in to the... problem kind of state. Georgia could have been just the beginning.

Georgia is very similar in terms of religious fundamentalism right now. It wouldn't surprise me if Russia started influencing and acquiring local failed ex-Soviet states again.

I'm going to miss Kazakhstan.

I'd be hard-pressed to name most of them on a map, unless that map was you know, labeled.

Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakh, Poland, East Germany, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia... does the Georgia region have more countries? Some of the Balkan places...

That's all I got.

There's like a Kirghyzstan or something, and some other -stans near the Caspian we're forgetting.

Stan? Stan?! Shtaaann!!

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
It's naive to expect progress? I realize Russia has never had a great track record in this regard, but my intention was to bring up just how bad things are under Putin, and that they will probably get worse. I posted another thread where Russian schools and officials were banning Halloween for being "unChristian".

Where Russia is concerned? Yep, pretty much.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakh, Poland, East Germany, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia... does the Georgia region have more countries? Some of the Balkan places...

That's all I got.
Armenia and Azerbaijan. Armenia already has Russian troops stationed inside for defense against the Turkish and Azerbaijanis, while Azerbaijan is in geopolitical terms a Turkish satellite.

Russia is already planning a currency union with Kazakhstan and Belarus, and Putin is doing his best to strongarm Ukraine into joining (or failing that, to make sure they never join the EU), but realistically Russia will never regain all of its former satellites, unless something drastic happens--and by drastic I mean aliens suddenly erase both China and America from existence.

Poland is a major part of NATO and the EU, Ukraine and Georgia are both NATO and EU candidates, and the central European countries have lots of Russophobia, though I think it's more dramatic in the older generations.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Armenia and Azerbaijan. Armenia already has Russian troops stationed inside for defense against the Turkish and Azerbaijanis, while Azerbaijan is in geopolitical terms a Turkish satellite.

Russia is already planning a currency union with Kazakhstan and Belarus, and Putin is doing his best to strongarm Ukraine into joining (or failing that, to make sure they never join the EU), but realistically Russia will never regain all of its former satellites, unless something drastic happens--and by drastic I mean aliens suddenly erase both China and America from existence.

Poland is a major part of NATO and the EU, Ukraine and Georgia are both NATO and EU candidates, and the central European countries have lots of Russophobia, though I think it's more dramatic in the older generations. In his book The Next 100 Years, George Friedman predicts that Poland will be the big player in Europe, along with Turkey. Britain and France never regain their old glory, Germany is too kowtowed from its history, and Russia tries, but fails to reinsert itself as a superpower (low birthrates and too many international competitors). China faces the long term repercussions from its one-child policy, and economic bubble-boom, and the West, desperate for immigrants from its own low rates, brain drains China and India of their skilled labor. Mexico and Brazil shine bright, and the U.S. enters it's "actual" golden age.



Canada stays frosty.

China recently changed their one-child only policy.

Then the world of Men is over.

Let us fade into the West.

*sniff* Annie Lennox, sing us out.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
In his book The Next 100 Years, George Friedman predicts that Poland will be the big player in Europe, along with Turkey. Britain and France never regain their old glory, Germany is too kowtowed from its history, and Russia tries, but fails to reinsert itself as a superpower (low birthrates and too many international competitors). China faces the long term repercussions from its one-child policy, and economic bubble-boom, and the West, desperate for immigrants from its own low rates, brain drains China and India of their skilled labor. Mexico and Brazil shine bright, and the U.S. enters it's "actual" golden age.



Canada stays frosty.
I wonder if he's updated any of his predictions given the developments of the last 4 years.

It also seems strange that he (based on the Wiki summary) completely ignores the EU as a factor in the geopolitical future of Europe.

I think he predicts the EU will dissolve. The power base will be in that "Polish bloc" he mentions.

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
Pussy Riots singer found

People disappearing, living in work camps with abusive conditions, not being able to protest, personal freedoms being taken...

Progressive, Russia is not. I guess I expected more from a country that decided communism was a failing enterprise.

You do know Russia and China CONTROL the globe through the U.S. Federal Reserve System, right...?

Not really Russia and China, but the promontory point of the Transcontinental Subterranean-VAC train Central Hub that, in fact, resides under Russian territory - using the FRS to suppress the world of the technology developed from their shadowy R&D programs.

That transit system was the last gasp of the Soviet Union - and the Soviet Union survives through it.

Originally posted by Dolos
You do know Russia and China CONTROL the globe through the U.S. Federal Reserve System, right...?

Can they speed up the rotation of the Earth during work hours?

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Can they speed up the rotation of the Earth during work hours? No, but they can hack into this.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
I think he predicts the EU will dissolve. The power base will be in that "Polish bloc" he mentions.

I would like to know his deeper thoughts on why the EU will dissolve. Some of what he is saying on some level makes sense, but other aspects just brings to mind Francis Fukuyama and his predictions and how wrong he turned out to be.

Originally posted by Utrigita
I would like to know his deeper thoughts on why the EU will dissolve. Some of what he is saying on some level makes sense, but other aspects just brings to mind Francis Fukuyama and his predictions and how wrong he turned out to be. It's a good book I've been meaning to read again. The author is the founder of STRATFOR, so his opinion comes from an informed POV. Though he admits that the second half of the book is a much wilder speculation, with specific predictions about space battle stations and wars. It's a fun read.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
In his book The Next 100 Years, George Friedman predicts that Poland will be the big player in Europe, along with Turkey.

I'll give Friedman his due, but following Stratfor, I've seen him get a good number of geopolitical situations 100% wrong. EDIT: iirc, I don't think he got a single issue in the Arab spring correct, maybe with the exception of Egypt falling into military dictatorship.

though, I don't really disagree with his analysis of Europe... I might put the Czechs up there with Poland as well...

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Canada stays frosty.

pfft, not if global warming has its say... in 100 years we will be farming bananas and oranges

I didn't think the Czech were that badass.


And we won't be farming the Cavendish, it'll be the Gros Michel. And not just because it sounds Frencher.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
It's a good book I've been meaning to read again. The author is the founder of STRATFOR, so his opinion comes from an informed POV. Though he admits that the second half of the book is a much wilder speculation, with specific predictions about space battle stations and wars. It's a fun read.

While he granted have a deeper knowledge then the majority of us, his interpretations are nothing but that. Hence why I follow him on some level but certainly not on others. Poland growing in power, is from my point of view only a logical progression and I think we will see Germany shift it's focus from France to Poland. I also highly doubt that the EU will disintegrate, if that was to happen it imo would have. Etc. But again I see where he is coming from, I just don't see him on being right, and then again he completely ****ed up his middle east analysis, but then again many did.

If there's one area that's nigh-impossible to predict, it's the Middle-East. They be kray kray.

I doubt the EU itself will fall apart, but if the Eurozone collapses (I think he sees that happening too), I can certainly see it eventually falling in to irrelevance. Not so much a "disintegration", but a slow, steady crumbling process. Nothing lasts forever.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
If there's one area that's nigh-impossible to predict, it's the Middle-East. They be kray kray.

I doubt the EU itself will fall apart, but if the Eurozone collapses (I think he sees that happening too), I can certainly see it eventually falling in to irrelevance. Not so much a "disintegration", but a slow, steady crumbling process. Nothing lasts forever.

Agreed, predicting the development in the middle-east is basically like rolling a dice with 100 sides.

Numerous have predicted the collaps of the Eurozone. And just as many have predicted that it will survive. Ultimately imo it rest on to what lengths Germany will go. The moment they say "enough" it's over. But I don't expect that to happen in a near future. I agree about the irrelevance, and I'll argue that its happening already and have been happening for a good amount of years.

Countries last forever (or very long) and in that perspective the EU has a good chance to survive, but its survival imo is founded on increased co-operation, not slagging around.

on topic: Russian Freedom of Speech. Такая вещь не существует

I don't care what Russia does. I don't live there. It's hard enough worrying about what happens in my own country.

Originally posted by jinXed by JaNx
I don't care what Russia does. I don't live there. It's hard enough worrying about what happens in my own country.
Well, I think you would care if the government collapses and their nuclear weapons "disappear."

To say we don't have to care about Russia at all just because it's far away is myopic to say the least.

Any country that big, with that many nukes, that much inner turmoil, that many ethnic groups, and with a history as violent and tough, is a country worth worrying about.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
I didn't think the Czech were that badass.

I hear you, in fact, I think I was thinking too limited of term, mostly because the Czech republic is a current battleground between Russia and the united states (missle defense, NATO, etc). I suppose there is little reason to think, 100 years from now, that will be relevant any longer.

And in all fairness, every pundit on the planet has got the Arab Spring wrong.