Eine Galerie des Fotografen Ilya Varlamov zeigt, wie Kinder (!) und Jugendliche einen Aktivisten nach dem Protest verfolgen und in einem Park verprügeln, er wird dabei verletzt. Die Polizei sagte dem Bericht zufolge zu den Angreifern: "Kindergarten, geht nach Hause."
Eine weitere Aktivistin, Maria Baronowa, musste mit Verletzungen ins Krankenhaus gebracht werden. Sie hatte in der Menge der Gegenprotestler einen Mann ausgemacht, der im Januar einen Aktivisten verprügelt hatte. Als sie die Polizei darauf aufmerksam machte, griff der Mann sie an und verletzte sie mit einem Schlag in den Bauch. Die Polizei nahm nicht ihn, sondern sie und weitere Aktivisten fest, die ihr zur Hilfe kamen.
abysmo wrote:
Russia is heading back to an oligarchy at full speed. A shitload of resources, a highly agressive and corrupt elite, not afraid of using nationalism, as you mention, and religion, as distraction tools. I read that the Orthodox Church is rising in popularity, and the government has greatly improved relations with it. They need all the help they can get.
When you see what happened with the election last year, there's really not much to be expected. They were vaguely a democracy before, but they're definitely not one any more. Rather one more dictatorial African country...
Their justice takes its order at the Kremlin (all opponents end up exiled, die in weird circumstances, or are tried for corruption (which is quite ironic in Russia)).
They're thriving on ground resources (gas + oil) but have little to no economy otherwise. Poutine enjoys being a constant pain in the ass at the UN because of his veto right. Hence his attitude about Syria, how he got mad when Medvedev didn't oppose air strikes in Libya, etc.
Thankfully our European governments have adopted a strong stance against them, and we (as countries) don't need to humiliate ourselves in front of Russia just to get excessively expensive oil and gas. Oh wait...
In Soviet Russia, everything is possible. I just hope that in few years, we will not have Soviet army on our doorstep here in central Europe, like in 1968...
But about the gay thing, yeah, it is not good in eyes of western society, but what should be the main purpose of goverment and politics? I think listening to their people in their country...and you know what? Around 85-90% of russians are supporting the anti-gay laws, so i dont see anything strange on having them.
Who are we to dictate something to people of Russia, when they think otherwise about it? Doesnt that make us also bad to force them to something that does not suit the ideas of majority of inhabitants?
Should russian goverment (i mean Putin) listen to 10% and foreign pressure rather than 90% of Russians? That would not make sense at all...
Edited by Avin Wargunnson on 13-06-2013 06:33
Are you familiar with the concept of "Tyranny of the Majority" Avin?
Just because the people think it's a good idea, doesn't mean it is a good idea. People can be really shitty to other people. The abolition of slavery, allowing interracial marriage, civil rights, and women's suffrage were controversial issues back in the day. Public opinion caught up to these ideas after the fact, rather than leading the way.
And as to your assertion that government's job is primarily to respond to the will of the people, that is also subject to criticism. See Plato's Ship of State allegory, or for a more nuanced take, look at John Rawls "A Theory of Justice."
John Rawls is more interesting to me, because it is more accommodating of democratic principles that we love to espouse. Basically, Rawls believes that the best form of government is one created behind a "veil of ignorance." People will form the best, more fair societal system when they have no idea who they will be in that society. They could be gay, could be straight, and they could be rich, could be poor. They aren't likely to make laws that favor one group over the other, because they don't know which group they belong to.
Of course there is the oft quoted cliche from Winston Churchill, which is "The best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter." It's a bit cynical, but it makes the point that government should make the right decisions not the popular decisions.
And how you know what is "right"?
It is right because you or western society think so?
I agree with those political theories you mentioned at most points, but 88% of russians who thinks otherwise as you or somebody who lives out of Russia are imo enough to judge the decision, so high percentage should be also through all parts of society and welth groups.
When you discount actual gays who are of course "biased" (can be how much? 4-5%?), 88% of 96% of russians are against it, i doubt this was the case with slavery in USA or similar you mentioned.
Despite the fact that I support gay rights, I do agree with avin on this one. The concept of democracy is that you never know what option is better but if the majority thinks its better-it probably is.
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
In Soviet Russia, everything is possible. I just hope that in few years, we will not have Soviet army on our doorstep here in central Europe, like in 1968...
But about the gay thing, yeah, it is not good in eyes of western society, but what should be the main purpose of goverment and politics? I think listening to their people in their country...and you know what? Around 85-90% of russians are supporting the anti-gay laws, so i dont see anything strange on having them.
Who are we to dictate something to people of Russia, when they think otherwise about it? Doesnt that make us also bad to force them to something that does not suit the ideas of majority of inhabitants?
Should russian goverment (i mean Putin) listen to 10% and foreign pressure rather than 90% of Russians? That would not make sense at all...
I think something else.
People are being controlled constantly, so what majority thinks is usually what the government thinks, I think that goes even more so for a country with a dictator.
...but what should be the main purpose of goverment and politics?
For me, it's easy: make a better place to live in. The people don't always know what's best for them. Why should anyone give a crap that someone else loves someone of the same sex and wants to marry? How's that your business?
Tolerance. That's what we miss in this world. Everyone has an opinion about anything and is constantly pointing fingers. Only I don't know why, surely it doesn't make you happy constantly complaining? Does it affect you if a gay person will marry, I don't think so.
Just what I think.
(When I said "you", I don't mean you, Avin. I mean generally. This is no attack on your comment, just my opinion of it!
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
In Soviet Russia, everything is possible. I just hope that in few years, we will not have Soviet army on our doorstep here in central Europe, like in 1968...
Definitely +1 to that, 1945-1991 surely wasn't a nice time here either, people had to live in the shadow of the Soviet Army...
I don't see any real military action happening in Europe in the following 1-2 decades, but with the recent events (Syria, ...) I feel like the Cold War is not really over... Americans and Russians (and the EU too...) provide weapons to different local armies (again, Syria). That's pretty much the definition of Cold War... Also, it's clear that the USA can only keep their economy running if they are at war. Selling weapons is a really beneficial bussiness, and getting some oil in the process is an added bonus... You have oil? Get ready for democracy!
On the topic of the Russian politics and Putin, I just really don't care about what they do, just keep it to themselves, don't ruin the rest of Europe. With that being sad, I still feel sorry for the people living there, it surely can't be easy.
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
And how you know what is "right"?
It is right because you or western society think so?
I agree with those political theories you mentioned at most points, but 88% of russians who thinks otherwise as you or somebody who lives out of Russia are imo enough to judge the decision, so high percentage should be also through all parts of society and welth groups.
When you discount actual gays who are of course "biased" (can be how much? 4-5%?), 88% of 96% of russians are against it, i doubt this was the case with slavery in USA or similar you mentioned.
So institutionalized discrimination is ok as long as it only affects 4-5% of the population? I don't accept that. That's wrong. It just is.
acac wrote:
Despite the fact that I support gay rights, I do agree with avin on this one. The concept of democracy is that you never know what option is better but if the majority thinks its better-it probably is.
Most people in the world think Israel should fuck off out of Palestine. The UN is a democratic institution, and Israel has violated more UN resolutions than any other country. Pony up.
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
When you discount actual gays who are of course "biased" (can be how much? 4-5%?), 88% of 96% of russians are against it, i doubt this was the case with slavery in USA or similar you mentioned.
Seriously? Like no, for real? So gays are "biased" because they protest against instituionalized discrimination against them? WTF. Then I guess institutionalized discrimination against women in Muslim countries is OK, or they are not white enough to decide what's good for themselves?
And I would like to see where does that 90% figure come from, although after one year in Eastern Europe* I can believe that most Russians would be in favor of such bullcrap.
* Not critizicing Eastern Europeans, who are mostly incredibly nice, but religion and state sponsored social conservatism has really done harm around here.
acac wrote:
Despite the fact that I support gay rights, I do agree with avin on this one. The concept of democracy is that you never know what option is better but if the majority thinks its better-it probably is.
Most people in the world think Israel should fuck off out of Palestine. The UN is a democratic institution, and Israel has violated more UN resolutions than any other country. Pony up.
there are 2 things i want to say from that:
1)i constantly see people on the internet that say that israel violates more UN resolutions than any other state, but never once did i see these people say what resolutions or show how they were violated.so do you care to expand on that?
2)you said "Most people in the world think Israel should fuck off out of Palestine". do you have anything at all to back up this statement?
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
And how you know what is "right"?
It is right because you or western society think so?
I'm very careful when it comes to judging people, but at some point, the wrong becomes so obvious that it's not an actual question. If you don't see that for instance what cio posted (the woman that was arrested after being hit multiple times in front of the police) is morally wrong, then I can't help you. This "who are we to judge" is usually a very good question to ask yourself before ranting about something, but in a case like this, it seems more like an excuse to look away from something obviously wrongful.
Agamir wrote:
Primarily resolutions 242 and 338 which states that occupation of the territories won in the war of 1967 are illegal
242: let me begin that the only part of this resolution that is still relevent today is the golan heights.the rest(gaza,Sinai Peninsula and the west bank) are no longer under israeli control. now about the golan heights-that territory is not relevent to the palestinians but to syria. there were severel peace talks which, as you can assume, failed. the reason that they failed is only because syria refused to stop supporting terror groups that call to not only destroy israel, but to kill the whole western world. that is not peace- that is syria telling the world give us everything and take nothing.
338: this resolution did not relate to any territories. it called to make truce during the yum kippur war. that war was started by syria and egypt. no reason to blame israel for starting that war.
Levi4life wrote:
Have the Israeli settlements in the west bank and east Jerusalem up and gone since the last time I checked? Otherwise 242 remains pretty relevant.
as far as i know, 242 dose not mention settelments. it talks about the israeli Annexation of the west bank. gaza, sinai and the golan heights. and as said before-the only one of these that is relevent today is the golan-which is relevent to syria not the palestinians.
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
And how you know what is "right"?
It is right because you or western society think so?
I'm very careful when it comes to judging people, but at some point, the wrong becomes so obvious that it's not an actual question. If you don't see that for instance what cio posted (the woman that was arrested after being hit multiple times in front of the police) is morally wrong, then I can't help you. This "who are we to judge" is usually a very good question to ask yourself before ranting about something, but in a case like this, it seems more like an excuse to look away from something obviously wrongful.
Just for the record, i have no problems with gays and their rights. It seems fair to me that gays could be allowed to have same partnership rights like hetero couples. Let them marry and od whatever they want (but i am still not sure about the adoption thing).
So i was not voicing my personal oppinion, but rather was thinking about situation in Russia. The decision should be democratic. Just allowing them all rights against 90% of public there will not stop the discimination, people will still be against it. Russia is specific country, i dont see why western Europe thoughts are necessary to import, when people dont believe in that.
Edited by Avin Wargunnson on 14-06-2013 08:29
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
When you discount actual gays who are of course "biased" (can be how much? 4-5%?), 88% of 96% of russians are against it, i doubt this was the case with slavery in USA or similar you mentioned.
Seriously? Like no, for real? So gays are "biased" because they protest against instituionalized discrimination against them? WTF. Then I guess institutionalized discrimination against women in Muslim countries is OK, or they are not white enough to decide what's good for themselves?
Duh. It's why only men should have a say on the topic of women's rights
On the subject of the state of Israel and its policy, there are a number of things to consider:
-Pretty much every country in a 1000km circle hates them. I'm going to be an advocate of humanity here and say that this is not because everyone around Israel is a racist antisemite, but probably because they think Israel's policy towards Palestine and Palestinians is nefarious. If you guys think public opinion should be a main decision driver, then it becomes clear that Israel's current policy is not in support of it.
-The only reason the state of Israel can survive in this geopolitical situation is because of strong financial and military backing from the USA. This creates arguably a similar scenario to Syria, where the only reason Assad is still in control is because of Russian backing. It is pretty clear that a situation like this is artificial and cannot be sustained indefinitely.
-The state of Israel is under constant threat, both digitally and physically from the Arabic world. The reason for that is explained in my first point. Of course, Israel has the right to defend itself. However, the right to defend itself does not warrant the structured discrimination as well as violation of human rights for another culture. Doing the latter only adds to the spiral of hate and violance against you. The question is where does self-defence stop and where does oppressing the other start.
-So how do we judge Israel's policy? Well, ideally, the goal of Israel's policy should be to achieve peaceful coexistence with Palestina and other neighbouring countries. If Israel wants to meet this goal, then it needs respect the territories of its neighbouring countries, their political systems, as well as the lives of the people living there. This means that it needs to stop any annexation as well as isolation of neighbouring countries, including both Gaza and the West Bank, just for starters.
Self defence is one thing, but when you're essentially creating world's largest open-air prison, as well as segregating between two groups of people, you are not striving for peaceful coexistence, and your policy is no different from a certain guy with a moustache and greasy head whose actions indirectly led to the creation of the state of Isreal in the first place.
Edited by ShortsNL on 14-06-2013 10:33
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
When you discount actual gays who are of course "biased" (can be how much? 4-5%?), 88% of 96% of russians are against it, i doubt this was the case with slavery in USA or similar you mentioned.
Seriously? Like no, for real? So gays are "biased" because they protest against instituionalized discrimination against them? WTF. Then I guess institutionalized discrimination against women in Muslim countries is OK, or they are not white enough to decide what's good for themselves?
Duh. It's why only men should have a say on the topic of women's rights
On the subject of the state of Israel and its policy, there are a number of things to consider:
-Pretty much every country in a 1000km circle hates them. I'm going to be an advocate of humanity here and say that this is not because everyone around Israel is a racist antisemite, but probably because they think Israel's policy towards Palestine and Palestinians is nefarious. If you guys think public opinion should be a main decision driver, then it becomes clear that Israel's current policy is not in support of it.
-The only reason the state of Israel can survive in this geopolitical situation is because of strong financial and military backing from the USA. This creates arguably a similar scenario to Syria, where the only reason Assad is still in control is because of Russian backing. It is pretty clear that a situation like this is artificial and cannot be sustained indefinitely.
-The state of Israel is under constant threat, both digitally and physically from the Arabic world. The reason for that is explained in my first point. Of course, Israel has the right to defend itself. However, the right to defend itself does not warrant the structured discrimination as well as violation of human rights for another culture. Doing the latter only adds to the spiral of hate and violance against you. The question is where does self-defence stop and where does oppressing the other start.
-So how do we judge Israel's policy? Well, ideally, the goal of Israel's policy should be to achieve peaceful coexistence with Palestina and other neighbouring countries. If Israel wants to meet this goal, then it needs respect the territories of its neighbouring countries, their political systems, as well as the lives of the people living there. This means that it needs to stop any annexation as well as isolation of neighbouring countries, including both Gaza and the West Bank, just for starters.
Self defence is one thing, but when you're essentially creating world's largest open-air prison, as well as segregating between two groups of people, you are not striving for peaceful coexistence, and your policy is no different from a certain guy with a moustache and greasy head whose actions indirectly led to the creation of the state of Isreal in the first place.
1)at the start of that claim you say that people dont hate us for the fact that we have a jewish majorty.to counter that, let me bring you some quotes:
a)"The Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the Earth, because they have displayed hostility to Allah."
(Sermon delivered by 'Atallah Abu Al-Subh, former Hamas minister of culture, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV, April 8, 2011, translation by MEMRI)
b)"Peace of us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all out war, a war which will last for generations."
(Yasser Arafat, former palestinian president)
c)"If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide"
(Hassan Nasrallah, curennt leader of hizballah)
d)"The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world"
(the soon to be former president of iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad)
as you can see, all of this quotes(except for b) are anti semitic. b on the other hand shows us that the palestinians(or at least their leaders) are not pro peace as they try to act.
2)there is some truth in that. no the other hand, israel does have the abilaty to live on without US aid. granted, it wont be as good as now, but it wont mean we will fall apart.
3) despite the major opinion, we do not discriminate the palestinian. they can vote and be voted for, they can openly practice islamic tradition(sometimes disturbing other people because of the Muezzin), they are entiteld to the same health care as me. on the other hand they dont pay taxes and the residents of gaza and the west bank get free water and electricety from us.
now about the self defend part. the world wide media tends to report only israeli attacks on the arab world but not arab attacks on us.have you heard about the israeli air force strikes in syria?have you headr about syrian mortars that fell in israel far before the first air strike?have you heard that in the past month, 20 syrian civilians who were injured in the war have recived medical treatment in israeli hospitals?have you heard that hamas fires rockets towrds our south on a day to day basis?
4)let me start by telling you that for the past four days, the media reported that there might be a new round of peace talks between us and the palestinians. netanyahu said in response that as soon as the palestinians will be ready to talk, there will be talks and that he has no pre-condition. abbas on the other hand, stated that he will agree to talk only if israel will cunduct 3 "trust building" gestures, one of them is to realese 107 palestinian inmates held here for killing israelis(mostly civilians and a few soliders). now take into considration that netanyahu is a hard liner and abbas is considered to be the most moderate arab leader ever. who is to balme if there will be no talks?
on your prison statement: most gaza residents work in israel and as stated before, get their water and electicety from us for free. considering that post people who say the prison thing talk about the naval blockaid, i will note that all un reports so far deemed it legal. now lets say you are still not impressd about israeli actions to avoid a prison like area-gaza also has a border with egypt. so either gaza residents can go thrugh that border and its not a prison, or egypt is also to balme on that.
The Flintstones is an accurat representation of how people lived in the worlds beginning, according to christians, since the world is only 5000 years old.
