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Russia Poised to Restrict Net Activities
DigitalHammer writes: "The Russian Parliament is planning to place off- and online restrictions to curb pro-Nazi and anti-religious activities. Former Reds are afraid they will be labeled as extremists, while envirnomentalists and human rights groups complain that the proposed restrictions will halt free speech in communist-turned-democratic Russia. Deja vu, I see? News.com has the story."
From the article, it looks like this law is a stinker. Extremest speech is defined as (among other things) anything that threatens the "safety" of Russia. Penalties are not strictly limited. This thing looks lie a total mess. At least they removed the provision that required foreigners to comply with the law. (Now wouldn't *that* make you reconsider your vacation to Russia?)
to silence minority groups. They got a decade experience in silencing anything that doesn't fit the profile.
:-) but just as much as their military turned out not to be anything like the stuff we feared (read : soviets-mujhahedin in afghanistan, and now in tsetsenia) I gues sthat their computer know-how has also degraded to a point where script kiddies are making fun of them...
However, I think this time they'll have to pass : if you see the effort the chinese gov are pushing to get the falung gong movement silenced, I seriously doubt any web silencing is ever going to succeed.
As related curiousity, I wonder what the state of former-soviet intelligence is on the front of web and information technology. The east-block used to have some real geniusses in their computer staff... they practically invented cryptography (and virusses
Is there any russian experienced enough to comment on this ?
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
If I operated a site which went on and on about how [insert -ism here] followers are great and America is evil and all that "bin Ladin" jazz then I would either get shut down or arrested.
America right now is in such a state of panic (well, the government is...) that they would go out of their way to crush your message.
Let's look back to the Committees on Anti-American Activities. So many lives were ruined and people were forced to answer up because they believed in something that "threatened" America (note: some didn't even believe, they were just accused). Now even though people here were afraid because of the obvious reasons - the Communist party was on the ballott. They still would have to be elected to gain any power. In fact AFAIK, no one has ever been elected under the party.
So, is this a YRO story? Kinda. But only if you are in Russia. To change this you'd have to be Russian and you would have to vote out the bastards doing this. If no one objects then... oh well.
Of course "anyone who give up freedom for security deserves neither". But that is an American quote. My guess is that lots of people here would be jumping to restrict KKK or Al-Quesadilla sites fast.
It's a funny thing. Bush has used the word "terrorism" so much that he is starting to become a tumor, ah I mean terrorist himself. His speeches scare more people than a picture of bin Ladin or the falling Twin Towers.
Just wait till they sue over the LoTR Part II title claiming it's offensive.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I gues sthat their computer know-how has also degraded to a point where script kiddies are making fun of them...
Is that why St. Petersburg State won 2000 and 2001 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest?
The Russian government of today was founded on a system very similiar to that of France. Russia has a very strong executive branch just like France and some Duma seats are won via a system of proportional representation (like in France)while others are won via a first past the post system. In other ways the Duma resembles the German parliament, but in most ways the Russia system is like the French system though a bit cruder. The codex of laws is very French though the criminal code is harsher etc... Since France has anti hate and anti nazi legislation on its books it no wonder that Russia wants too adapt a similiar system. Remember when France sued Yahoo for linking to hate sites? Russia lost 23 million people in its fight against the Nazis and defeated something like 70% of Hitlers army, plus the Romanian, Hungarian and most of the Italian armies while we in the west had it easy. So the Russians don't like nazis. However, the French seem to love Trotskiets while the Russian have more or less had enough of Communism. Whats wrong with this law? While we in America don't have such laws our government does purposely make it hard for hate groups to grow. We have the Repo statuets and a lot of anti KKK laws on the books. As a student of Russian history and culture it amazes me how most Americans including most of our policy makers misunderstand Russia or its new system. If this law came out of France or even England (a country with no real constitution) there would be almost no response or criticism, but since its Russia it can't be good right? The Cold War is over. Get over it. Russia in now in the NATO 20 and is now a full member of the G8 I think its time we stop being so suspicous of every policy that comes out of Moscow. Don't get me wronf Russia is no Eden it has MAJOR problems, but they are being dealt with. Even the Russian economy has VERY strongly rebounded since the 1998 collapse, so they must be doing something right over there. Take from someone whose father served in the red army. Russias nuclear missiles will not be stolen. Most are kept in "closed cities" cities in which to this day travel is not easy and you cant live there for long without a special passport! Nuclear fuel and materials, however, are not as well guarded, but you can getting radioactice Cesium from any hospital in the U.S so what do you want! Putin is easily one of the best leaders Russia has had in some 400 years if not the best. Give the man some credit I think he has proven that he is no Stalin and yes I speak Russian!
are you all crazy? Russia will never attack America. The resulting war would end all life on earth. Yes Russia continues to maintain its missiles by replacing old ones with new ones, but the Russian strategic forces are shrinking not growing. In any conventional war Russia would easily defeat us. There entire industrial backbone as messed up as it is already and always has been set up for a war footing. This is a by product of the Soviet system and it hasn't changed. They don't need to retool their factories, but we do because most of our heavy industry is mothballed. In the time it takes us to rev up production they would win the war. Russia produces the best field artillery, anti ship missiles, anti aircraft missiles, fighter, air to air missiles, guns, and subs in the world and they has larger stockpiles then we do. Their production capabilities are worse then ours, but in the short term they can out fight us. Moscow alone is protected by 3000 SAM's most of them of the C-300 and 400 variety meaning they will shoot down ALL bombers and fighters sent their way. While our cities are defenseless. The C-400 is considered by all experts to be the best air defence missile system in the world, better then out patriot. Lucky for us that nuclear weapons make conventional war between us impossible.
This is one of the fundamental problems with respect to ruling a country. The ideal government would be a dictatorship that always makes the right decisions, because they can impose their decisions upon all citizens with no restrictions, faster than any other kind of government can.
However, no government always makes the right decisions, so neither can a totalitarian governement. Many people in western society believe that democratic governments are Good, and non-democratic governments are Evil. But what defines ``democratic''? In an absolute democracy, the people vote on every decision a government makes. This makes the government extremely inefficient, and it leads to many bad decissions. This is caused by the fact that governments decide on many issues that many people are not knowledgeble enough to judge on.
Nowadays, governments refered to as ``democratic'' usually follow the paradigm of electing a new government every so often, which will then rule the country until the next elections. There are two forms: democracies, where the responsibilities are divided over a number of individuals, and republics, where a president can make decisions on every aspect of society. Most governments are somewhere in between, and the power of individuals or individual bodies is usually restricted, either through a strict separation of legislative organs (trias politica) or a system of checks and balances.
The problem with a system where governments are elected for a certain period of time, is that, once governments are elected, they can in fact do whatever they want. This is usually bad policy, because doing something contrary to the will of the people will lead to that party or person not getting elected next time. However, a number of factors complicate the issue. First of all, a government can do a lot to influence its people. The two main ways of doing this are censorship and propaganda. Censorship refers to the process of prohibiting material that the government considers harmful, propaganda refers to the government promoting certain practices or a certain way of thinking. Every government that I am aware of practices both censorship and propaganda to a certain extent.
Then there is the issue of influencing people before the elections. A proven technique to win votes in democratic governments is to just cry out loud that the former government made terrible mistakes, making people afraid of something, and promising to correct that through imposing strict law and order. This is a strategy most suitable for extremist parties, and has proven succesful in history, and has been practiced in recent elections in Israel and many European states. From an outsider's point of view, the feelings of insecurity raised by those parties usually seem very unreasonable. Governments try to protect their citizens from this kind of mass-hysteria by outlawing certain parties known to play on people's feelings. This is meant to protect the people against themselves (as many such parties tend to be either incompetent, or not really concerned about their citizens), but can be taken too far, leading to governments sustaining their own reign through the power they have.
Another issue is the influence of the media. Media have a very strong influence on how people think, and what they consider important. In some states, the media are entirely controlled by the government. This is a dangerous situation, because it makes it very easy for the government to manipulate people's thoughts. In other states, the media are entirely free, that is, the government does not have any direct control over them. This is also a dangerous situation, as the most popular media tend to be controlled by large corporations. Corporations have certain interests that correspond with the programmes of certain political parties better than with others. Independent media, therefore, have much to gain by influencing people to vote for certain parties rahter than others. The influence of corporations on elections becomes even stronger when one takes the cost of election campaigns into consideration. These are usually vast, and it is not unusual for parties to accept money from corporations to fund their election campaigns. Even if the corporations do not ask the party to do anything in return, by merely giving money to a party they favor that party over the others, increasing chances of that party to win the elections.
The point I have tried to make here, in a rather lengthy way, is that no government is free of issues. There's always something wrong, sometimes there simply isn't a right way. Banning out certain parties isn't necessarily bad. Being undemocratic isn't necessarily bad. Restricting freedom isn't necessarily bad. It all depends.
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Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years
organising and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.
-- David Broder
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
You realize that Marx and Engels, being the fathers of communism, came before Lenin and Mao, right? Before Stalin, too, Einstein.
It doesn't matter what they called themselves, does it? Televangelists claim they're working for the Christian God, and I can clearly see that this is not the case. Perhaps Christianity is a group of racist, self-centered, egomaniacal, con artists that take sums of money from poor elderly people hoping to win a few more points into the gateway of Heaven before their time passes?
I guess Democrats with their populist agenda are really doing things for the little people, afterall. All of this time I thought they just gave lipservice to the poor, environmentalists, etc. Glad to know that because they say they're working for the small fry that that's true.
If you can show me where in the USSR or in China there is no class system at all, I'll be glad to listen to you further, but to me it seems pretty clear that you've never read communist literature. Five year plans, slavery, a ruling class, and a cult-like worship of Lenin/Mao are directly opposed to Communism.
This is because they were just your typical totalitarian war machine. All of the real Marxists were assassinated by Stalin as political advisaries.
There has never been a Communist State. There likely never will be a Communist State. However, quite ironically, the U.S. embodies some of the dumber aspects of the Communist plan, as well as a few of the good ones.