Same episode as this: http://www.videosift.com/video/Bill-Maher-Throws-A-911-Truthy-Out

Garry Kasparov formed the United Civil Front, which is a member of The Other Russia, a coalition opposing the elected government of Vladimir Putin.

United Russia, Putin's political party in conjunction with its youth division Nashi, is vehemently opposed to Kasparov, criticisms range from calling him mildly a capitalist foreign proxy to outlandish ones citing his movement as akin to fascism. In fact to join Nashi, youth candidates under go a screening process where they have to state why they hate the US and why Kasparov is dangerous. Nashi's most popular slogan is "No to Fascism!"

The facism claim tickles me, while Putin rides out the economical revival after several years of turmoil under Yeltsin, he is also cementing all goverment control under him. Electoral laws have been changed to centralize government power in Moscow, odd for a nation that stretches from the Finnish border to Siberia. But it's all due to the threat of terrorism you see. The upcoming December election is nothing but window dressing, analysts unanimously agree that Putin will hold power even if a new president is elected perhaps staying as a Prime Minister, until he can run again in 4 years for President again.

Many Russians don't seem to mind as they have equated democracy with chaos, and don't realize the various political, social and press freedoms they are losing. Russia is sliding slowly backwards into authoritarian state control.

I personally blame misguided nostalgia for Soviet prestige and power that the country enjoyed previously, that is slowly developing into nationalism centered under one ruler.

Check this related sift - Nashi : The Rise of Pro-Putin Youth.

As a Chess player Gary has always been my hero!

It's certainly not difficult to make Bill Maher look dumb, but Kasparov made it look even easier than usual...

That was impressive. He's so friggin' plain spoken.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'presidential, chess master, putin, mathews' to 'presidential, chess grandmaster, putin, matthews' - edited by jonny

Sorry, did he say 'Jew political tool'?

edit: Ah yes, thank you fullerene dream. It is geo-political.

maybe 'due political tool'

This is why I love Video Sift. What a great clip. Big upvote for me. By the way I hope Gary can overcome the odds. I heard he has been attacked a few times over there.

Good luck to you, sir.

He's been beaten over the head by a chessboard. Most people are angrier that he's not playing chess than that he's in politics.

He definitely said "geopolitical tool".

Jew political? Wtf people. You've never heard of the term "geo-politics"?

putting his book on my christmas list

Yes, it is clear that he said geo-political. I'm glad to have had that pointed out for me. It was quite disturbing.

Kasparov should be running here. Let's hope he has some success.

Maher proves can he push around the (mostly) boobs he has on his show, but when he faces someone with intelligence he looks like one of his boob guests.

here, here rotty...

Thanks again Bill. Instead of me learning something new from Kasparov, I had to watch you get beaten over the head like the little mullet-child you are.

wish Kasperov'd be a there to interrupt Maher on his shows

SMART MAN! He outta be a president or something

And I too heard Jew-Political tool hahaha

But on a serious note, I don't think democracy would work well for a country so big and divided as Russia. You DO need a police state when you're trying to forcefully unite a country from falling apart. Russia IS on a brink of collapse. Putin's administration is the only reason it's kept together.

So I dunno if it's the right 'time' to introduce democracy to Russia right now.

Now is not the "right time" for democracy; let's just shelve it for now. Let's proceed to kill and beat them senseless until they have no will or desire for freedom or democracy...ya...that'll do it.

Perhaps Russia is falling apart because it can't and shouldn't be forced together.

All that's holding Russia and China together right now is gross human rights violations. Without them, both countries would fall apart. It's true. And that's a good thing. I'd rather have a divided Russia and a divided China, and a free Taiwan, a free Tibet, a free Burma, and a free Chechnya.

I strongly disagree. I think the cold hard facts from history disproves this idealistic claim.

Hate to bring up America's current biggest controversy here, but look at Iraq. It was a militant police state. There was cruelty and oppression but also control and order. You say freedom and democracy is better than order and control? Just look at Iraq and all its glory today.

Same can be said about Afghanistan, German Confederacy, post-world war 2 Czechoslovakia, Fascist Italy (Mussolini), Yugoslavia, Aztec Empire, post-colonial India, Roman Empire, the USSR, and perhaps the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Order and control is always better than the unlimited amount of freedom that comes when regimes are fallen afterwards.

Chaos (too much freedom) is no better than tyranny. But at least you can control the level of tyranny when things are organized (Russia has enough order and stability to 'fake' democratic elections). When you have chaos, you have power over nothing, and everything blows up with massive collateral damage, effectively undermining local populace' economy as well as infrastructure. Eliminating any means for them to rebound from their old regime and forced to live in extreme poverty.

Give Russia some time to economically develop and politically stabilize. And things will change by themselves (also speaking historically. higher economic power = higher civic power). But trying to force something that's clearly not ready for will only make things worse (Nepal). Because democracy is not the most ideal way of governance for every country (let alone a corporate company/private business) 100% of the time.

@ legacy:

" But trying to force something that's clearly not ready for will only make things worse (Nepal)."

...like: " You DO need a police state when you're trying to forcefully unite a country from falling apart. Russia IS on a brink of collapse. Putin's administration is the only reason it's kept together."

???

What, you're saying instead Russia is ready for collapse of government? lol

You're just playing around with rhetorics and obviously didn't make any effort to understand my perspective. Read my post again to give me some proper argument please. If you're not going to be serious than I don't want to bother giving you a serious answer.

You may argue that I too am not understanding your perspective. Well perhaps that's because your posts are no longer than a paragraph and you've never elucidated your own point of view in detail. If you want to criticize my beliefs, at least make it clear that why you see things that way. Otherwise I'm just going to ignore your 'hit-and-run' type of comments that is lacking in earnestness.

legacy,

I thought I was pretty concise: perhaps Russia should not be held together by force. Anything that needs to be forced does not seem natural or right.

My second post was just pointing out what seemed to be conflicting statements in one of your posts.

I'm not "hit-and-running" you. I just don't feel the need to rant beyond my statement.

No harm intended.

"Order and control is ALWAYS better than the unlimited amount of freedom that comes when regimes are fallen afterwards."

I think "always" is just a weeeeee bit strong. Nazi Germany had "order", and look how that turned out. Personally, give me the wild-wild-west of democracy over the brutal totalitarianism of an insane dictator any day...

legacy... oh dear oh dear.

Thank you Rotty. BTW, notice how other liberal members of videosift are disagreeing with me on this as well? And you call me a 'true democrat'. HA!

As for your rebuttal, I believe that you need minimum amount of force to keep things together, and claim that no country can be held together with absolutely no amount of force to keep it in check.



And to Oreilly:

You're just focusing on the racist holocaust part of Nazi Regime. Nazi Germany was a huge success both militarily and economically. Everyone other than 'Pure Aryan blood' were suffering, but for the country itself, it couldn't have gone any better.

Everyone has a hard time differentiating Nazis with racism at first, but once you get past that big hurdle you can see how successful they were in other sectors. But without doing this I'd assume you'd never be able to understand my point of view.

Nazi Germany was able to rebound from a devastating post-war recession in record time, and regain their lost territories (including their original Prussian lands which was annexed when Poland was created, politically designed by the triple alliance to cripple Germany) with military might. You guys forget how bad Germans had it by the end of Versailles treaty.

You may also note that the reason why Germany became such a totalitarian state was because of such harsh economic situation. If their economy wasn't in such a bad shape, democracy would've naturally set foot in German government and Hitler would've never had a place in history.

Bottom line: Civic power = economic power. I say again, Russia is not ready for democracy. Civilian's economic power isn't up to par to grant civic freedom (who happens to own their own league of assassins, soldiers, and sometimes small armies with 1 - 2 illegally purchased tanks and artillery).

United States has issues with gun control and the possible threat it can bring when it goes into the wrong hands. Well, guess what, Russia has a very similar problem, except that gun control is basically non-existent because state doesn't have enough power to enforce it (does this qualify as 'freedom' as well?). No gun control means no regulations to the amount of guns you can buy and the lethality, either weak enough to take down a deer or strong enough to firebomb 5 major cities.

And you say you'd give freedom and democracy to these people? I'd like to get a front row seat to see their first purely democratically elected president getting assassinated within 7 days in office, immediately followed by 4-5 different splinter groups claiming their legitimacy of an independent state, causing an all out civil war within all of Russian lands, which in turn will cause various political upheavals to Russian neighbors, which in turn will cause China, North Korea and other East European countries to react militarily. And guess who's going to get involved once China starts moving around?

You think this is far fetched? Read more history books.

Wow, Kasparov makes Chris Matthews and Maher seem so stupid by comparison. Like beating up a second grader.

Why are you people beating on Maher? I don't get it. He wasn't arguing with Kasparov; he was interviewing him. And aside from one stupid question (about Russians wanting a strong president), it was a good interview. So wtf is your problem?

"And to Oreilly: (insert many paragraphs here)"


If I needed a history lesson, I'd go visit Wikipedia where the trusted information lies.

But thanks for the effort nonetheless...

legacy:

I think you are right in some aspects, but wrong in others.

First what you got right:
Economic power does generally mean civic power, and economic stability does generally mean civil stability.

Some questionable claims:
Democracy (especially the free-market democracy that America wants to export) is not necessarily the best form of government for everyone, but it is not really up to you (or anyone else) to say what that government should look like. Democracy is not a fixed concept, but rather operates on a kind of sliding scale of openness, legitimacy, and participation. So obviously, any kind of a backward slide down that scale cannot be congratulated simply because it leads to more "order."

Iraq is not the best example of what happens when a government becomes democratic. Iraq is in transition, it is no way a functioning democracy. During a move from authoritarianism towards openness and transparency (read "democracy") the transitory period can be destabilising; however, as you move out of that transition (or, if you move out of that transition) the result is a much more stable society where people can redress their grievances and not resort to violence. Take a look here for more info.

Finally, your ideas about chaos, too much freedom, civil conflict and collapsed states. This happens all the time in Africa. Is it good for the people of that nation? Yes and no (depends on who you are). Does it lead to all out international war? Yes and no (depends on where you are and what resources you have, see DRC). Does it destroy the economy? Yes and no (wartime economies are quite powerful and profitable). Are you being too simplistic and relying on the realist perspective a bit too much when you make such dire claims? Yes.

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.

@aaronfr

Maybe you're right about me being a tad bit pessimistic. But on the flip side I believe others here are being overly optimistic over how quickly these nations can pick themselves up and all of sudden become a thriving nation.

You argue that transitory period will only temporary, but you have no way of predicting how long or how bad the damage would be. And after the damage has been done, the economy would be in a worse state than it originally had been, hence making it even harder to have a nondiscriminatory democratic state.

So, thinking that it will always end up better, or it'll all be worth it after the deed's been done, sounds a tad bit ridiculous to pessimists such as myself.

And why would you say it's going 'backwards'? Having a little less freedom to keep things in line is considered 'backwards'? (I wanna drink a beer instead of going to my job, because my boss grants me a lot of freedom.). Freedom vs control has always been the key issue all government philosophy, and one is not better than the other. When you focus too much to just one aspect, you always end up screwed (i think everyone can agree with this one). It's the balance of the two that's important. Saying 'democracy is the only progressive way' is a very biased thinking in my opinion. I believe both are equally important, and country needs to exercise both equally to be a successful nation.

You also say that as one demographic moves out of that transition, the result is a much more stable society where people can redress their grievances and not resort to violence. If this is true, then how come liberal/democratic nations such as USA (including the 60-70s), Germany, UK (including IRA), France and Belgium are having riots and domestic uprising, and had to use force to control their own populace?

Liberal nations put extra emphasis on freedom, but they still practice all the order and control other nations practice, just that those others aren't as careful with individual freedom. But apparently there are a lot more people living in peace outside of these liberal nations than just the US and all other 'liberal banner' countries. For example, countries with socialistic views such as Norway, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and maybe Syria, practice lot stricter control than its neighbor Sweden. Yet, people there have high happiness rates, not because the surveys are rigged, but they really are content with what their government is doing (just go talk to your typical Turk).

So all liberal/democratic nations having more happiness is just another 'our way is best' type of narcissistic thinking. You've got just as great a chance of ending up with happy citizens no matter what type of government it is, as long as it exercises freedom and control evenly.


@farhad

Whut! centralized power onto individuals always leads to collapse?!?!?!?! WHUT!!! That's a vastly generalized claim! How could you even say such a thing if you've educated yourself with history books?!?!?!

King SeJong of Joseon Dynasty, Louie the XIV of France, Genghis Khan and all other military conquerer types, Octavian Augustus of Rome, Emperor Han Wudi of Han Dynasty etc etc etc etc....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Chung-hee


Democratic/republic/parliamentary government these days are just a modified version of ancient kingdoms, where your advisors get to vote who would become the next king for 4 years, 10 years instead of automatically making the latest king's idiot son as their next leader. By the way, Russia is technically a parliamentary government too ya know. United States is also a democratic republic, but that didn't stop a certain guy from dominating the senate with his team. Conclusion: if you have a smart bloke on the throne, things go well. If you got an idiot on the throne, things suck. Doesn't really matter what kind of government you have, as long as they're designed to choose good leaders (Saudi Arabia's absolute monarchy also fits this description by the way. They do dethrone incompetent kings).

And also, military growth is a good way to jump start your economy. It's a good method proven through time and history. Russia has nothing left since the USSR collapsed except millions of weapons factory. Why not use this infrastructure to good use? I think it's a pretty good decision of using what you're dealt with to maximum effect if you ask me.

russia needs an ex-KGB despot for a leader like she needs a hole in the head. I don't see how you are going to transition from some guy who models himself on Hitler, to a democracy. Putin's propaganda is that democracy is chaos... while all around him chaos reigns without democracy.

How you can be patronising enough to sit on the internet and tell the world's largest country they are not ready for democracy and should continue to suffer under an autocrat, i do not know.

Military growth is a good way to jumpstart your economy? oh lol, you lost me there. I guess Hitler was right after all, right? Fixed the railways didn't he!

@MINK:

"Military growth is a good way to jumpstart your economy? oh lol, you lost me there. I guess Hitler was right after all, right? Fixed the railways didn't he!"

...Yes?

I wouldn't say he was right about EVERYTHING he stood for, but he did 'fix the railways'. And I believe I've already mentioned why I believe in such ways on my posts above.

I think we have a very fundamentally different outlook on things here, like a religious debate. And I don't think we'll get anything solved here...just like a religious debate. Let's just say legacy is a crazy fool. End of argument.

P.S. oh and BTW you guys, recently I've had a chance to see what real Russians (at least who they claim to be) via the web. Turns out, they do like what Putin has to offer. Maybe that popularity poll wasn't such a rigged nonsense after all.

@legacy:

You have said several times that you democracy can't be forced on a people who aren't ready for it. I fully agree with the principle and your examples. But I don't see how that sentiment applies here. What country is being considered for "forceful" democratization? Nobody's talking about going to war to make China and Russia democratic. We're talking about nations that are clamoring for freedom and being militarily repressed. As I said above, if Russia and China stopped their human rights violations, Tibet, Taiwan, Burma and Chechnya would be free, and soon democratic. Heck, Taiwan already is democratic, but not freely so. China and Russia would be imperceptibly smaller, and free to continue on as the dictatorships they are now, without having any democracy "forced" on them.

*latenight

Adding video to channels (Latenight) - requested by eric3579.

Won't let me, but hopefully the next that comes around will fix this.

*dead

Invocations (dead) cannot be called by omnistegan because omnistegan is not privileged - sorry.

*dead

This published video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by messenger.

*notdead

Only dead or deadpool videos can be deemed not dead - ignoring notdead request by sbchapm.

You guys don't have a clue what Russia needs, but I do.

I just watched The Saint.

Word.

I wish I could *promote

I love this guy.

Invocations (promote) cannot be called by deedub81 because deedub81 is not privileged - sorry.