Quote: (08-17-2012 07:44 PM)durangotang Wrote:
Quote: (08-17-2012 07:07 PM)Vicious Wrote:
Punished they should be yes. By a court of law under the rule of law. Not from Putin holding a press conference and declaring what he thinks the punishment should be. If that is not the arbitrary rule of a dictator I don't know what is.
Judge Marina Syrova announced the verdict from a district court in central Moscow, about two miles from the Christ the Saviour Cathedral where the guerrilla group performed its "flash" stunt. A judge, not Putin, gave the verdict.
That's right. She announced the verdict. Putin however called it in advance. He did call for leniency but that's hardly an excuse when expressing himself as a leader of state on an ongoing case. He has not been equally "generous" when disposing of prior associates and contenders to the throne such as Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Alexander Litvinenko and other vocal opponents. These people are all dead, in jail or in exile.
The same courts do happen to be quite lenient when it comes to sentencing the killers of critical journalists however.
But if you know ANYTHING about Russian you already know this and I'm surprised we're even having a discussion where Putin's judical virtue is being defended. Of course you can just dismiss all this as the fabrications of western media. But that means you are taking the words of a quasi-dictator over most of the rest of the world's free press. Instant tin foil hat alert.
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I partially disagree that the "attacks" on the Russian state are powered by interests under the boot of the regime. Certainly democracies are not immune to this type of thing. People are easily manipulated. Do Russian women suffer so greatly? Did American women in the 1950s/1960s? On a side note, I disagree with outright sexual harassment in the Russian workforce, but it is polar opposite here in the west and men suffer greatly. Ultimately foreign influences are seeking to disrupt their culture, sovereignty and to undermine their power, and are funding a few disgruntled people to do it. This is not some organic movement in my opinion. It is a science, how to covertly destabilize a society. Hell, the Russians practically invented it.
This is all interesting, but ultimately anecdotal and philosophical. You are also just repeating points I've already addressed in a rambling manner. Saying the same thing twice does not make it true.
And please do spare us your feigned humanism for the masses by jumping on a simple term as human resources when in the same breath you sweepingly dismiss people in general as being easily manipulated. Hypocritical.
Before the Russian elections millions of millions of protesters to the regime took to the streets. That these countless people are all manipulated by western interests while you have seen through it all with a couple of internet videos... can you possibly be any more arrogant?