Article

2008-05-08 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russia's Medvedev takes power, pledges freedom

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Posted by Fred 2008-05-08 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 See also RENSE > GORBACHEV: US PROMISES CANNOT BE TRUSTED.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-05-08 01:19|| 2008-05-08 01:19|| Front Page Top

#2 Why do they bother mouthing these platitudes?

Posted by mojo">mojo 2008-05-08 09:04|| 2008-05-08 09:04|| Front Page Top

#3 The leader of any country, be it a king, a prime minister, a president, or even a foreign invader, is constrained by the people. That is because, though they give the orders, the people have to execute them.

So in the carrot and stick manner, if he tells them to do something they want to do, they do it quickly, efficiently and well. If they don't want to do it, they are sluggish and the work is done poorly or not at all.

Medvedev, and Putin before him, face the same people, after a fashion, that did the communists and even the Czars. And all of them eventually have to give the people what they want.

And there are times when the Russian people are intensely xenophobic, when they confuse liberty with weakness and crime, and basically, they want a government that is more brutal than what the government wants to be.

So the leader has to, one way or another, give them what they want.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-05-08 09:31|| 2008-05-08 09:31|| Front Page Top

#4 Yeah, that theory is perfectly demonstrated in N. Korea, Zimbabwe and Myanmar, to name a few. But I guess those people just wanted repression and starvation.

Posted by remoteman 2008-05-08 18:46|| 2008-05-08 18:46|| Front Page Top

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