Good long New Yorker article on Russia under Putin

[url]http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/watching-eclipse[/url]

A good part of it is based on an interview with the recent US ambassador to Russia, but it's written by the New Yorker editor who has been writing about Russsia for decades. And Ambassador McFaul had been a grad student in Russia in the 1990s, so it's a nice overview of recent history of Russia.

It points that the recent hostility started after Putin decided he didn't like how Medvedev was doing as President and Putin decided to run again.

[QUOTE]McFaul had no reason to expect .... hostility from the Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev. As a policy expert who served on Obama’s National Security Council, McFaul was a principal architect of the “reset,” a kind of neo-d

it always seemed to me Medvedev was a puppet for Putin, who had always had dominant political control of Russia. lets be honest he would never have been President if Putin didn't want him to be by stepping down, and if i remember right Putin was getting a lot of criticism for jailing russian oil tycoons and taking their company. he'd never have been able to step back in if he weren't in complete control the whole time.

Russia's future is fukked either way.

Putin just seems to be to that alpha dog leader that you want on your side, running your country.

I wouldn't hesitate to take him as president of the USA right now.

[QUOTE=russwest0]Putin just seems to be to that alpha dog leader that you want on your side, running your country.

I wouldn't hesitate to take him as president of the USA right now.[/QUOTE]
Are you trolling or are you saying you would prefer not to live under a democracy?

[IMG]http://media.giphy.com/media/s0vroF7qEbYg8/giphy.gif[/IMG]

[IMG]http://media.giphy.com/media/tG4Dx1PU6Qk2Q/giphy.gif[/IMG]

i don't really understand politics, but i thought meddy-veddy was pretty much a place-holder proxy intended to keep the seat warm for putin.

putin from my understanding is a variety of world-class thug who came up through the old KGB and has a terrible weakness for political drinking contests and the need to prove his britches no matter what.

he has like 85% of russia right behind him from what i've read, which is also why he feels secure leading them in to disaster. the problem as i understand it is that his disaster becomes all of ours sooner rather than later, through a variety of means.

[QUOTE=KevinNYC]Are you trolling or are you saying you would prefer not to live under a democracy?[/QUOTE]
i've read that huge numbers of american conservatives have a major hard-on for putin. they admire his 'strength and decisiveness,' etc.

jesus christ this world is doomed... just pick your poison at this point.