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Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Do it ironically posted:

What’s the deal with Putin, is he a literal dictator or can he be voted out

Unquestionably yes, he's now at the point where his popularity is low enough that it's not at all certain whether he'd win a fair election. Surprise, all his opponents are being jailed for corruption or straight up killed, and the elections are run directly by his goons with no monitoring allowed.


He collected all this power over time because started out super popular, and it's important to know that he got super popular because the klepto-capitalism installed by american and western interests was a complete disaster for average russians in the 90s. The late days of the soviet union sucked but we made things worse.

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Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Mr Havafap posted:

I like the tunnel to the beach most, but I can't figure out how the gigantic blast door is supposed to work, it almost looks like a drawer complete with a rocky facade?

I think it is just a trompe loeil thing, where if you were on a boat or plane that was respecting the no-fly zone it'd look like a flat cliff.

If that whole thing could move that'd be nuts, but I can't see any reason to do that. The beach entrance isn't where you'd put the safehouse and secret escape rocket.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Weka posted:

Putin's definitely a bad dude but it seemed like he was good for Russia, atleast for a while. I'm not sure if he's continuing to improve living conditions there though or what would happen if he left office.

Steadily rising oil prices for the first 15 years of his rule were good for Russians.

A good leader could have used that massive inflow of wealth to improve the country. Putin used it to enrich his cronies (whereupon the money flowed right back out of russia, into western banks and london real estate), and to make his whacko attempt at Cold War 2: This Time It's Personal.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Mozi posted:

i see some unsourced screenshots of an opinion page someone wrote that contradicts what navlany himself says in his speeches

did you get this from jimmy dore or something?

Navalny is at the very least a nationalist who is playing to russian xenophobia to remain popular and not get branded as a tool of the west, he's not a liberal by any western standard. If he was a US politician he'd be a sucky option. But all the liberals anti-putin people got jailed or killed already.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Infinite Karma posted:

I wonder how rich Putin really is. Is he actually secretly richer than Elon Musk?

When the Panama Papers thing happened there was good evidence that Putin had over $2 billion in offshore money for himself and his family.

Putin effectively controls all the state-owned companies in Russia, including Gazprom which is in the top 100 biggest companies in the world and makes $20 billion a year in profits. Do those count as "his" for wealth? Even that billion-dollar palace isn't technically his, it's owned by various branches of the russian state. He didn't have to pay for it himself.


Putin is kinda beyond money, he's either a relatively ho-hum billionaire or the richest man in the world, depending how you look at it.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Calvin Johnson Jr. posted:

What's the tangible difference between having $200 billion or $70 billion? I don't even know how you would spend the 70 without running out of ideas.

I dunno, but I can tell you what the tangible difference between having $200 billion and being V Putin is:

"I really enjoy a holiday on the black sea coast. Minions, go build me a palace there. Also, take over Crimea and Abkhazia, so that I can sit on my balcony and not be offended by the sight of any land which is not my own!"



Do it ironically posted:

the problem with being Putin is yeah you're wealthy and powerful but if he tries to "leave" the racket and he's vulnerable someone is going to grab that power vacuum and then murder him. The way I see it is there's no retiring from his scheme to enjoy his evil gains

For some reason, dictators never consider the prospects of a relaxing retirement. Apparently being exposed to that amount of power makes you feel like dictator for life is just an automatic yes.

e:

EorayMel posted:

How well can putin smoke weed vs elon musk, who cannot smoke weed

In the video it says there's a dedicated hookah room.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Alan Smithee posted:

drat russia's in bad shape if this their answer to the overton window

all the propaganda and disinformation they've used to push far-right nationalism in the west? it's effective because they spent years workshopping that poo poo on their own people until they were producing really slick poison on a regular basis. the textbook they're following is by a guy who wrote admiringly about nazi propaganda.


it's a win/win for putin because even when it doesn't result in a friendly wanna-be autocrat like trump getting elected, the resulting societal disruption and unhappiness is fodder he can feed back to his own people: "see, they're constantly at each other's throats in america. riots and burning buildings! you don't want to be like america or accept the things america says are good, or you'll have that chaos here."

that's the game plan. push hyper-nationalism and distrust around the world, because then being an average russian under putin maybe doesn't seem so bad.

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Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Sucrose posted:

edit: How did we even resist the ideological influence of the Nazis? I mean, it's not like the United States was a shining beacon of equality at the time. Not that I'm claiming your average Joe American would have been ok with the Holocaust or anything, but that wasn't revealed until much later. When the Nazis were first gaining power in Germany, what was it that made the American government and public go "Yo, gently caress that." (I'm aware there were some Nazi-sympathetic factions in the US, but they lost the battle for control, badly)

It was not nearly as lopsided a victory as you think. There were a whole lot more people interested in the nazi message than would ever admit it after the war, when they generally just brushed it off as being anti-commie.

I think it's a pretty conventional take to give the nod to two big things going for us, that were more luck and circumstance than some amazing american national character. First was FDR being enormously popular and solidly on the side of liberal democracy. Followed by the good fortune that most of the credible media went totally sour on the nazis after hitler invaded other countries. When Lindbergh gave his first "if you think about it, it's really the jews who are to blame" speech he was castigated by every paper of record, and that's why it looks like the american people didn't like what he had to say. In fact quite a lot of people did like what he had to say. But there was no fox news(paper) to put a bevy of dittoheads on display saying "he's right you know".


tl;dr I can imagine two things that easily could have given the US a different, and far darker, history.
1. an early 1930s mitch mcconnell who was able to stop the new deal, such that the depression dragged on longer
2. a late 1930s rupert murdoch who could have given american nazis like lindbergh a more prominent and credible voice



edit: also none of that is useful instruction for what we should do today, since "resurrect FDR" and "fire fox news into the sun" are both great ideas but currently impractical.

Klyith fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jan 22, 2021

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