Gab@StFerdinandIII - https://unstabbinated.substack.com/
Plenty of cults exist - every cult has its 'religious dogma', its idols, its 'prophets', its 'science', its 'proof' and its intolerant liturgy of demands. Cults everywhere: Corona, 'The Science' or Scientism, Islam, the State, the cult of Gender Fascism, Marxism, Darwin and Evolution, Globaloneywarming, Changing Climate, Abortion...
Tempus Fugit Memento Mori - Time Flies Remember Death
“Tens of thousands of Russians flooded downtown Moscow on Saturday to demand an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's rule, casting a strong challenge to his bid to reclaim the presidency in March. The massive protest -- which drew 120,000 people, according to organizers -- reflected a mounting opposition to Mr. Putin's 12-year rule that has badly dented his father-of-the-nation image, even though he's expected to win the vote that would extend his rule by another six years. The protest leaders hope to stage another rally a week before the March 4 election to raise the heat on Mr. Putin. The previous rallies -- the second of which also drew an estimated 120,000 -- were the biggest in Russia since the protests 20 years ago that paved the way to the collapse of the Soviet Union.” WSJ
Vlad and friends will just smile through the protests, stuff ballot boxes on March 4 and win '80 %' or some such number of votes cast. Not much changes in Russia. Yet as the Russian elite becomes further distracted and distanced from the population, ideas of reform and rebellion will spread throughout society. Rulers evincing 'stability' including Charles X of France [post Napoleon]; Franz Joseph in Austria; Cromwell; and even the Romanovs, eventually had their regimes overturned by events, punctuated by a general feeling that the ruling elite or 'strong man', was completely disinterested in, and dissociated from the mass and their real world problems. Nepotism, 'powerism' and 'greedism' might be the theologies of the ruling cohort. They ring hollow with people earning an average wage of less than $1000 per month, and who are pessimistic about their futures. Russian birth rates are spectacularly low for example. A sure sign of general pessimism and cultural decline.
Can Russia and its usually apathetic subjects tear down and replace the Putinistas?
Is Tsar Putin ready to relinquish power and return Russia to change and as he would put it, instability? More likely is 12 more years of Tsar Vlad the Judo lover. There will be consequences. Reduced foreign investment. Further nationalisation/Kremlinization of the economy. More corporate fascism. More deaths of journalists who oppose the regime. Few liberalizing measures. Exportation of young people. A declining birth rate - why have babies if you have a negative view of your future ? A larger share of Moslems as a % of the population - already at 25%. More funding of Moslem and Arab regimes as threats to Western interests in the Muddled Yeast. At least the Great Peter and the Romanovs knew that Russia was better off with the US, the UK, Holland, and France as partners. Not Vlad the Journalist Impaler.
Russia will get little out of a new Judo-lovers dictatorship. There are risks to any 'change', but Nemstov et al. or the 'Liberals' who are at best half-hearted reformers; are hardly radical orthodox Conservative-Bolshevik types out to recreate '10 days which shook the world', and turn Russia into a libertarian paradise. But the big wits will call the Judocracy of Putin, 'stability'. Sure Russia might be stable - especially when most of its Euro population leaves and most of its assets are owned by a small group of late middle-aged white men in the Kremlin. Stable indeed.
The Russophiles will disagree with the above and say that Vlad is the greatest leader since oh I don't know, Robespierre perhaps, or maybe Honecker in East Germany. Maybe he is even as big as the O'Goda in the US ?
Look at Russia now vs. 1998 they scream ! Richer, fatter, happier, stable. One of the worst decisions made by Yeltsin was to trade rocky Russian development and the uneven road of economic and social development for his own safety and to keep his corrupted $5 billion in stolen dollars. He handed Russia back to the KGB. A simple fact. But for the Russophiles Vlad the Journalist Impaler will be the greatest Russian leader since Trotsky. A man for all seasons. The embodiment of strong, sober, great-man rule. Competent. Inscrutable. Looking good in swim shorts. Screw the people. All hail the King! Bow to Vlad and be glad. Stability is the cry. Order is the new freedom.
Nota bene;
The Russiaophiles will not like these articles:
Nemstov organizes anti-Putin protests?