The election of Vladimir Putin last week didn’t get much of any news coverage. The day after the election I turned on the news with the intent of finding the results between Dmitri Medvedev (the incumbent president) vs. Prime Minister Putin. I didn’t find any news reports on TV. So I searched online and finally dug up a news report on the results. I suppose since there weren’t any fatalities or death in the protest groups in Russia, it wasn’t newsworthy.
I however, think this election result is a bit more important than the media thinks it is. Putin has already shown who he is from his first and second term as president of Russia. He believes that the government should be in control of the economy and in control of the choices of the citizens of Russia. He has openly stated that he is against democracy and individual freedom.
Putin is a former KGB spymaster and doesn’t play fair in international affairs, he is very manipulative. In his speeches, Putin used to say he was for peace and wanted to be a part of NATO; while at the same time making secretive billion dollar arms deals with Iran. Condoleezza Rice, as Secretary of State was very good at keeping Putin under control and she kept him from following through on his plans with Iran. I am glad Condi Rice was our Secretary of State while Putin was in power. She is one of the few who can get those in the Kremlin to cooperate with American interests. Her expertise in Soviet history and culture, and her ability to speak Russian helped her gain much respect from them. I have respect for Hillary Clinton in many ways, but not as Secretary of State. When she went to Russia to make progress on a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, she presented them with a silly toy “reset button” with a big red button to push, you could tell right away she would struggle to get any respect from them. I hope Putin doesn’t try to put his plans with Iran into overdrive now that he got away with this election. It is a mockery of the election process for him to cheat his way into a third term. He could essentially be in power until 2024.
Luckily we haven’t had to worry about Russian motives since Medvedev has been president since ’08. Dmitri Medvedev has been deregulating the centrally planned market in Russia, and focusing on allowing new technology to emerge in the marketplace. He has been openly friendly to other countries that are pursuing democracy over dictatorships. Russia of course has a long way to go in order to be free from tyranny, but it’s been going in a good direction for a little while at least.
While Medvedev was president, Putin has been leveraging his corrupt power as Prime Minister in order to get back the presidents seat for a third term. Putin rigged both the voting and counting sides of the election process. He had busses full of people paid to vote for him, and then ride to the next district to vote again. He also had people working for him to count the vote to his favor. He gave his acceptance speech before even half the votes were counted. Most Russians know that Putin has been participating in devious behavior in order for this “election” to go in his favor. The people that work under him fear him enough to not do anything about this. There is only so much the citizens can do without being prosecuted and unlawfully imprisoned. Medvedev has even struggled to keep Putin from overstepping his bounds a Prime Minister in the past four years.
The reason why this fraudulent, unfair election should be more newsworthy is because Iran and its nuclear ambitions are all over the news right now. Vladimir Putin’s interests run more parallel with Ahmadinejad in Iran than with Obama in U.S. or Netanyahu in Israel or any democratic country. Russia has of course had worse leaders before Putin, but when you go from the leadership of Dmitri Medvedev back to the tyranny of Vladimir Putin it’s a big step backward for freedom and liberty in Russia.
I’m not suggesting anything should be done about this stolen election politically, however; it would be refreshing to see the Russian citizens’ figure out a way to stand up against this phony election outcome and demand justice and blind rule of law. I suppose many folks in Russia don’t know what true freedom is. When you are born and raised in a state of tyranny, you accept and adapt to your environment establishing that as normal. The same could be said for those of us born and raised in the United States. Most folks in the America would say this is a free country, the most free in the world. That is reasonable when comparing America to Russia, but in the context of true freedom and liberty, we aren’t even close. For the past 100 years America has been swiftly moving away from economic freedom and personal liberty. America is not the freest country in the world.
There are probably not many Russians writing about this deception. I know if I were a Russian citizen I wouldn’t have the guts to write about this, for fear of imprisonment and harm to family, it would be a bit scary. I’m glad I have enough freedom to write about this in America, although; I wouldn’t be surprised if I were being monitored by our government, thanks to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act (FISA) which is also used for domestic surveillance and the Patriot act that G. Bush signed into law, and Obama has maintained and extended. I guess they forgot to read the fourth amendment of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
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