@newtboy
gonna have to disagree with ya there mate.

not so much on the speculation in regards to trump involvement,or some kind of capitulation with russia.there quite possibly be some co-ordination between the kremlin and the trump administration.trumps alleged ties with putin may all be true,but until i see some actual evidence,that is all it will ever be;speculation.

and i think chomsky's criticism is a valid one.
the "russia russia russia" drum beating is reminiscent of the republicans and their meth-induced media barrage of "benghazi benghazi benghazi",and even after their precious political whipping tool had been debunked,they STILL beat that drum.

and of course it is hypocritical of the US government to cry about political election interference! america has been interfering with other,sovereign countries democratic elections for decades!

because here in murica' we like our allies to be either be run by despotic leaders,or rigid theocracies,because democracies are hard to manipulate and control.can't be bribing an entire citizenry now can we? we like our foreign allies like we like our meat,juicy and tender and easy pickings.

now i am not here to defend putin.the man is a brutal authoritarian,who may appear to some as a russian patriot,but i just see a ruthless and saavy political player who appeases the only constituency that matters to him.the russian oligarchs,and they OWN that fucking joint.

but it was NATO who began to encroach on russian borders,not the other way around.in fact,as early as the 80's we began that encroachment.we lied to gorbachev,who was removed as president in shame,to be replaced by yeltsin.who was america's pick for their own little tool of the kremlin.

russia's military build-up has been a direct response to our ever-increasing wars of aggression in the middle east.putin has stated so publicly.

russia's biggest export is oil and natural gas,and russia pretty much is the sole provider for all of europe.with our wars in the middle east,and now qatar aggressively seeking to push through their own oil and gas pipeline to sell to europe.(what?you thought yemen and syria were about civil wars and terrorists?).

what did you THINK russia was going to do?
sit back and let their only major export be challenged?

and now that trump,like the buffoon he is,publicly stated that if the baltic states are not willing to pay their fair share towards NATO,then they will be removed.opening the door for putin.

poor latvia...

but lets waste all this time on "russia russia russia",while ignoring the larger implications of a fucking world war.

did russia manipulate US elections?
possibly..probably..
was the trump administration complicit?
possibly..probably..

is their any evidence beside speculation,and coincidence?
nope.

chomsky makes a valid point.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shifrinson-russia-us-nato-deal--20160530-snap-story.html

Pause the vid around the :50 mark...look at the expression on their faces...and check this out.

"...He also relayed how Boris Yeltsin's late-night drinking during a visit to Washington in 1995 nearly created an international incident. The Russian president was staying at Blair House, the government guest quarters. Late at night, Clinton told Branch, Secret Service agents found Yeltsin clad only in his underwear, standing alone on Pennsylvania Avenue and trying to hail a cab. He wanted a pizza, he told them, his words slurring.

The next night, Yeltsin eluded security forces again when he climbed down back stairs to the Blair House basement. A building guard took Yeltsin for a drunken intruder until Russian and U.S. agents arrived on the scene and rescued him...."

This story is taken from an interview with Clinton, read more here http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-09-21-clinton-tapes_N.htm

Tags for this video have been changed from 'bill, clinton, boris, yeltsin, joke, disaster, reporters, laugh, blooper, russia' to 'bill clinton, boris yeltsin, joke, disaster, reporters, laugh, blooper, russia' - edited by xxovercastxx

Your video, Clinton Yeltsin "Disaster" Blooper, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

>> ^Krupo:
I was amazed by the band at 0:30 for not cracking up laughing while performing. Damn. Ah, the boob grab at :45... classy.


Reaction was equally hilarious

Ah, but I miss this guy. Guess you don't appreciate what you have until it's gone ...

*nochannel (because all those clips were from the '90s, when he was President from 1991 to 1999)
*worldaffairs *comedy *history (he certainly is a historical figure)

The man loved *music, didn't he. And I think it's obvious to most that he was drunk in some of those clips (he was a notorious boozer), hence *drugs too.

Yeltsin's alcoholism references (to be faithful to the Drugs Channel Manifesto):

http://www.rusi.org/go.php?structureID=S433ACCE7CB828&ref=C462F17BB5A9C3
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/defining-boris-yeltsin/
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1613579,00.html
http://www.healthieryou.com/exclusive/yeltsin.html (in which we learn he also took prescription drugs that reacted badly with booze)

Russia for the last 8 years has benefited from America's war on terrorism, with high fluctuating oil prices and the stranglehold of gas supplies to Europe from central Asian states. Most of the economic growth was also from the maturation of many reforms passed under Yeltsin. Putin's strong stance against Chechnya and dismantling of oligarchy wins favour with the Russian public. Anything is possible for the people of Russia as long as they do not think of becoming involved politically against the Putin's KGB cadre.

However with the economy now entering recession people's lives will be affected, Putin froze the prices before elections earlier in the year, dissent would rise as the illusion of economic growth now fades and change is pushed for. The Kremlin will come down hard on anybody who will start to resist. This is the reality of State Managed Democracy in Russia.

More:
The Rise of Pro-Putin Youth
Putin Warns Countries Not To Interfere With Russian Affairs
Why Democracy: Russia's Village of Fools
ex-KGB spy speaking against Putin shortly before his death
Real News: Eric Margolis comments on Putin and Russia's Duma
Russians back Putin, Russian Elections deemed a 'farce'
Suppression of Opposition Groups in Russia
Putin's Message to the West
Death of a Nation: Russia in 2006 by Marcel Theroux
Kasparov on Maher--Being Very Clever
Panorama - The poisoning of Litvinenko
Russians mark Anna Politkovskaya's Murder

DEC 14 2008 MOSCOW— The Russian police detained dozens of antigovernment protesters attempting to hold an unsanctioned rally in Moscow on Sunday.

Police officers and armored riot control personnel prevented the planned protest in central Moscow from materializing, in the latest sign that public expression of dissent against the authorities would not be tolerated under President Dmitri A. Medvedev any more than it had been under his predecessor, Vladimir V. Putin.

As many as 100 people were detained, including Eduard Limonov, the head of the banned National Bolshevik Party, said a spokeswoman for Other Russia, a coalition of opposition groups led by Mr. Limonov and the former chess champion Garry Kasparov, among others. The police said that about 10 people were detained during a similar protest in St. Petersburg, Interfax reported.
The Moscow demonstration was meant as a protest of the Kremlin’s handling of the financial crisis and its plans to change the Constitution to extend presidential and parliamentary term limits. Government critics say such a move could be used to extend the authority of Mr. Putin, who is now prime minister, and possibly lead to his early return to the presidency.

Mr. Putin, while he has said Mr. Medvedev will remain president until his term ends in 2012, has not ruled out running for a third term after that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/world/europe/15russia.html?_r=1

I posed the same question to my dad's friend who is a proud Russian patriot, he said that the nation is prosperous but is again sliding in to the same political system that was prevalent in the USSR.

This is something reflected now in the way Russia is dealing with Iran and Georgia. I still believe the economy is over reliant on oil and gas pipeline control from Central Asian nations going into European markets. Alternative pipeline development in Georgia is a reason I believe Russia is meddling in it's affairs, as an alternative gas line from Central Asia to Europe would hinder Russia's ability to control the market to it's benefit as it has been trying to do with Ukraine.

Economy development is nice and all but it doesn't correlate directly with political and democratic freedom, at the same time that Russia's economy is developing we have an entrenchment of power via the Nashi / United Russia Party. Putin's role in bringing Russia back has been hyped up, when in reality they are benefits of difficult economic decisions made by people under Yeltsin, which Putin reaped politically. Economic development has also been centralized in Moscow, its not like Serbia or any other Russian backwater is better off now on the same level.

People in Russia didn't want Putin to leave actually, he didn't change the constitution to validate a third term, but am sure he will after Medvedev is done, to me that is basically the return of the politburo in the high echelons of power in the Kremlin.

My view is pessimistic, as Putin represents that most dangerous element of human psyche, someone raised in the mystique and power of the old Soviet Union, trained by the KGB to watch it all collapse in 1991, now working to build up its power once again but not through democratization but through a return to centralized power.

This is of course the same kind of Managed Democracy we see in China, and every former Soviet State. The important factor uniting them being the illusion of simple 'consumer' freedom.

In reply to this comment by EDD:
In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
I disagree with you Legacy, Putin is centralizing power under himself thus its a authoritarian regime. History proves that too much power concentrated in one singular person always leads to a collapse not a sprout of growth and progress. This is why Nazi Germany failed, why the USSR failed and why every despotic regime fails.

Furthermore it is not economic stability when a country is wholly dependent on its oil export revenue to sustain a military expansion that is slowly leading into a new cold war.

I'd really like to super-promote your comment right now.

Although to be fair, legacy had some valid claims - at least the idea that a civic society in Russia would eventually arise through strong consumer society is backed up by Dmitri Trenin's Getting Russia Right, which I am currently in the process of finishing translating.

Hope I'm not bothering too much by following up on old comments. If you're not bothered too much, what's your take on Russia nowadays - up or down? How likely we really lapse into a new cold war with all the recent bs going on?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Riot, Moscos, Russia, Constitutional Crisis, Yeltsin, Rutskoy, 1993, 90s' to 'Riot, Moscow, Russia, Constitutional Crisis, Yeltsin, Rutskoy, 1993, 90s' - edited by kronosposeidon

OK, there still might be some that don't know the fact that makes it THAT much more hilarious - Yeltsin was the first president of Russia in the 90s.

I watch Russian television on regular basis and keep informed via their press, over the last few years you saw a systematic propaganda movement to convince the Russian population of the same things that are hit within this documentary, that service in Russia is to "Land, Church and Tsar" or specifically the former KGB cronies who now occupy all government posts headed by Putin within the Kremlin. The stability most people talk about is not stability, its fear and respect to the old ways of Russian control much the same way that has been ingrained in the population over 100 years of centralized soviet communist and previous to that Tsar rule.

There is no tradition of peaceful power passage within the Russian government, because for Russians the modus operandi has been either revolt or submission. But its very simplistic to assume that it's what Russian want or understand much in the same way it was simplistic for the Neo-cons to assume that Arabs only understand brute force.

They have not been informed or given the opportunity to see that there are other choices beyond Putin or even Yeltsin, who after a disastrous first term was elected for a second term. The press apparatus was ineffective in informing the citizens that there was another choice, and now has been wholly seized by the state, thus you see the development of anti-western rhetoric that even Legacy employs, that Kasparov and other democratic parties are 'super-western'. It's merely a revival of the age old Soviet stance of 'enemies aboard', 'western intervention' and so on, but merely is a guise for assumption of totalitarian power, much in the same way 'war on terror' and fear mongering tactics were used by the White house to justify intervention into Iraq and the dismantling of key civil liberties.

When Yeltsin assumed power it was recommended to him that he disband the KGB and former secret service apparatus, but he did not take these steps, and over the years the KGB reformed as the FSB encroached on more positions of power and control within the government. Year on year the number of high positions held by former members of the KGB/FSB increased, far in excess of even the times of Gorbachev and the USSR.

Electroal laws have been changed to create a perpetual one party state under "United Russia" - from Putin machine squeezes opponents

* Increasing the minimum percentage of votes required for a party to enter parliament from 5% to 7% and banning parties from forming coalitions in order to break through the higher threshold

* Increasing the minimum number of members a party must have in order to be officially registered by the authorities, from 10,000 to 50,000

* Banning independent candidates from running for parliament.

Russians know this and voice their views, the economic success that so many people tout as being Putins are not his really, it was merely the time when benefits of centralized market systems moving into free market reforms completed laid in by Yeltsin, and of course the benefit of high oil prices and gas prices. All development has been concentrated in Moscow, travel to the rural areas and you instantly start to wonder what had changed from 1991 other then the abundance of mobile phones.

History shows that for totalitarian rulers to come into power require the convergence of time and opportunity, and this is Putin's time, over the last 6 years he has successfully dismantled any way of opposing him, and centralized power under himself, the election that is taking place is already called he will become prime minister, the population lulled while the engine of economy purrs well seemingly, but once the oil boom stops, food prices locks are removed and the population will start to revolt against their leader, there is no doubt in my mind that Putin will use whatever means necessary to suppress the population citing western intervention, orange revolution and using the secret police that even now are breaking up opposition demonstrations.

That's a simplistic argument to make, that Russians 'tried' democracy and it failed. The fact is that Russian's never got to experience democracy at all, with the coming of Yeltsin into power the centralized market system was thrown out overnight for a capitalist economy, workers were issued shares for the companies they worked in, the Russian currency collapsed, pensions were stopped, all due to western economists (who arrived in droves) believing that the spirit of entrepreneurship would suddenly infect the souls of people who lived under communist rule for over 60 years.

But what happened was that some individuals within that system started buying out the shares from the workers who needed to sustain themselves at that point, seizing massive control of various industries, thus creating the oligarchs. The same people who now own various football clubs in the UK.

The people as a whole felt robbed, they blamed democracy for that, failing to see how the economic reforms worked against them, instead of blaming the transition many more people assumed it was democracy that was at fault. What should have been a long term phased switch into a market economy like the one seen with China was rushed within the space of a few years, incomes and welfare of course fell. Look at how gradually China introduced free market zones, by cordoning them off to small regions, then allowed foreign direct investment there. The whole motto of their capital development was "import 1st product, assemble 2nd product, manufacture 3rd product".

The current Putin government is full of KGB cronies who have muscled their way into acquisition of the most important sectors of the economy, most significant of them being the oil sector, which is wholly responsible for the economic boom in Russia. The war in Iraq and possible war with Iran has seen the Oil price soar year on year since 2000 and Putin's coming into power and the economic boom in Russia, that's not coincidental. This is why Putin visited Iran, instability in the Middle East sustains the high oil price and Russia's development.

Putin did give something to the Russians, and that is pride in their nation, a seeming return to the heyday of the Soviet Union with it's planting of flags in the Arctic, stance against the American government and nuclear armed patrols that hark back to the Cold War era. But it also came with government control of oil resources, elimination of civil rights, elimination of freedom of press, state control of media, needless military expansionism, Byzantine rule of government, political oppression through assassination of those who oppose the government.

Just this past month he imposed a collective freeze on food prices until after the elections sometime in January, this was done so as to keep the appearance to Russia's poor that the economy was doing well when in reality food prices across the world are rising, once elections are over they can remove the freeze.

A good article on "Why Putin Wins" is Sergei Kovalev's article , who gives a realistic breakdown of Russia as it is now and what is its future. As Scott Horton says in "What Putin Wants":

The challenge will be for America more than for Russia. In America, there is still a hope that the democratic process can work to effect a rollback of creeping authoritarianism and a restoration of the beacon of hope that the land once held up to the world. In Russia, all sight of that beacon is lost.

Your argument that non-democratic states like Kingdom of Saudi Arabia offer a higher standard of living is ridiculous, most of the population lives in poverty as the wealth is concentrated in the Royal family and even then only through the continual oil production, almost everything it produces is sustain through government subsidization, much more of its products are simply imported. Jordan differs because they possesses a technocrat King who believes in development, that doesn't mean tomorrow a tyrant will take power.

And am sorry but slave like hours on minimal wage for 90% of the population making Nike shoes does not translate into a higher standard living for the Chinese as a whole, not to mention that development is confined to the coastal areas, while inland China lives in poverty due to lack of investment and encroaching desert taking away valuable agricultural land. China possess an incredible amount of income disparity, firms are still mainly controlled by the Chinese government. It is true that there is slowly an emergence of a middle class, that is being educated abroad and not going back to mainland China, because opportunities in the west are much better.

The argument that ANY government policy has a potential to achieve strong economy is simplistic, the market system works because various agents start to develop products and services to supply a demand of other agents. That requires freedom of enterprise, the ability to freely form business solutions. That means reform laws that actively invite business activities to take place. Communism or centralized market economy does not lead to a strong economy because the demand and supply signals do not exist, the government decides what is important to produce and does it. It leads to a mis balance and a concentration of power in the hands of the few, this is why the USSR failed, and why China started to put in place free market reforms in the 80s. States in the Middle East still sustain their perverse development through oil money, without which all of them would quite realistically fail, as they are overly reliant on foreign labor and are not actively developing their skilled labor force, not to mention the sheer amount of corruption that occurs between those in high office and citizens.

Your mention of a few democratic states that are in poor shapes is simplistic again, they are not failures of democracy but rather a lack of proper reforms and rule. Brazil is doing rather well now actually even though government corruption is still rife as is political instability. Nepal is constitutional monarchy, where the King has assumed emergency powers and holds all executive power so I have no idea why you lumped it in there. Albania on the other hand has had successive government instability with the neighboring war, socialist, democratic governments in succession, the economy however is steadily developing even though stability has been hard to attain since 1990.

The idea behind democracy is that citizens can have a say in where their nation is heading, being elected to government doesn't make saints out of people where they suddenly selflessly try to achieve economy development for the people as a whole. The African nations where strong armed authoritative ruler one after the other prove this, as does Hugo Chavez who after winning the trust of the poor is now concentrating all executive power under his own control, as does Iran where Mahmoud's promises to the poor for oil revenue sharing amounted to nothing but continuous tensions and sanctions from the west.

I think you need to further broaden your understanding of the complexities of government rule and policy with regards to economic development as they are rather basic right now.

Nice find mink, and I still say you crazies are having this crazy dream about democratic Utopian world. Part of the reason why Putin and his ways are so popular is because they 'tried' democracy back when Yeltsin was in power.

Things went to shits during that time, yet Putin was one of the very fews that actually disagreed with Yeltsin's ways, saying decentralized states would ruin the nation, and Russia needs a more authoritative government to stabilize itself from post-disintegration of USSR.

10 years later things turned exactly the way Putin had predicted, and gave him lot of credibility. That's why Putin got into power in the first place.

All in all, they've tried their best to have democracy and things turned out to be awful. Putin comes in with his ways and things are turning around, and nation is getting rich.

So tell me, why the heck would Russians risk everything they've got right now, and try this democracy deal again?

p.s. and why are you guys keep linking democracy = better standard of living / humane treatment?

Standards of living comes from better economy, not just by switching to democracy. And don't give me that 'democracy = better economy' BS. That's capitalism, not democracy (IE People's Republic of China). Democracy is a way of government policy, not ethics. There were / still are plenty of non-democratic nations with very high standard of living (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, China and etc). And democratic nations that are in poor shapes despite their western government policies, such as Brazil, Nepal and Albania

Any kind of government policy has a potential of achieving strong economy and higher standards of living. Quit doing that cold-war style 'OUR GOVERNMENT IS THE BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT'.

In Soviet Russia, Yeltsin drowns YOU?

Yeltsin had way more class than Putin.