[QUOTE=Lijitsu;44814528]Statistics actually work like that, but I do agree that sample size seems low for the population they're representing. I'm far from a statistician, but it seems like you would need a much bigger number to confirm accuracy on a population like Russia's.[/QUOTE]Depends on how accurate you need it to be. Pew reports an error margin of +/-3.6%, which is about usual for these sorts of things afaik. Since these are just to get a rough idea of the general population's opinion on certain matters, usually as news fodder, they don't need to be incredibly accurate. It is important they accurately account for the margin of error, however, even if only for their professional reputation.
A census, which Facepunch seems to think should be conducted for everything in place of surveys, is the process of gathering information from everyone; and generally speaking only governments have the resources to conduct them, and use them mainly for gathering info on population growth, unemployment, average household wealth, and other information that is directly important for determining government policies.
[editline]15th May 2014[/editline]
One thing that does concern me about this poll, though, is that they didn't poll Chechnya or Ingushetia. No doubt the lack of results from there was taken into account in the error margin, and their populations aren't much at all compared to the rest of Russia; but it would've been very interesting to see how the minorities in Russia viewed the same questions. Somehow I doubt Pew would've gotten the same result of overwhelming support for Putin as the Russian government somehow got.
wow i didnt know the russians miss their communism, with their identical (or near) outfits, the same amount of tiny income and being owned by the government.
EDIT:
Capitalist pig master race.
Also, communism often results in a dictatorship, Stalin V2 anyone? when can we get Winston Churchill to come and preach about the iron curtain again?
it's stupid but I don't see why some of you guys assume that russians wanting the soviet union = russians wanting stalinism
[QUOTE=cucumber;44814558]Most of the Russian population is anti-Semite, racist and paranoid.
If somehow Soviet Union reboots and tries to occupy my country, i would rather die resisting than living in it or somewhere else.[/QUOTE]
+ Homophobic
[QUOTE=can man;44814954]+ Homophobic[/QUOTE]
+ russians eat children. At least i do. But only if they are homosexual.
[QUOTE=Araknid;44814928]it's stupid but I don't see why some of you guys assume that russians wanting the soviet union = russians wanting stalinism[/QUOTE]
That's actually true. I'd be willing to be a surprising amount of Russians would be willing to give the USSR another shot if it was more classical marxist rather than the totalitarian bastard child of marxism, i.e. stalinism.
[QUOTE=The Aussie;44813989]
It's unfair to compare the reign of Stalin to post Stalin leaders of the Soviet union. Did you know the first secretary of the USSR (kind of like the president) actually denounced Stalin as a monster immediately afterwards? Fifties Soviet union was actually quite good. Good scientific progress, good economic growth, excellent heavy industry, then Leonid got into power and kind of stumbled the USSR into stagnation. I'd imagine that a lot of people would want the return of fifties soviet union. The only really bad part about the fifties was the lack of consumer goods. That's because Stalin didn't give a fuck about his people and decided to sink manpower and resources into heavy industry instead of consumer goods.[/QUOTE]
the last political prisoner camps weren't disbanded until the 1980s
scientific research was heavily biased in favour of physics and space travel. the ussr contributed almost nothing to the field of biology
agriculture never recovered, with the result that the ussr eventually had to import food, despite them having some of the best agricultural land in the world
the eastern bloc countries had to send off most of their resources to russia
it still repressed minority groups, banned freedom of speech and religion, and had internal rebellion constantly
the ussr didn't fall apart because of leonid. it was already going that way, and the economic "Progress" consisted largely of them proudly announcing how much steel or grain they had produced and focusing on increasing these raw figures
the ussr had science only because it served political ends. their heavy industry was completely unnecessary and when people complain about russias loss of industry, that's actually russia returning to where it should be.
[editline]15th May 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Araknid;44814928]it's stupid but I don't see why some of you guys assume that russians wanting the soviet union = russians wanting stalinism[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/4000381/Josef-Stalin-named-among-greatest-Russians-in-nationwide-TV-vote.html[/url]
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;44815152]that's actually russia returning to where it should be.[/QUOTE]
But where should we be? I'n not kidding, i'm really interested in finding the answer to this eternal question, and your opinion could be very useful.
[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;44813888]And they're a bunch of idiots too. Soviet oppression brought about one of the largest death tolls in human history. And these fools want to live under that same oppression again?[/QUOTE]
they're probably thinking about the time between stalin and the fall of the berlin wall
[QUOTE=antianan;44815212]But where should we be? I'n not kidding, i'm really interested in finding the answer no this eternal question, and your opinion can be very useful.[/QUOTE]
Focus on a diverse economy, much like the one slowly developing before WW1 or in the 1920s before Stalin introduced the 5 year plans.
Agriculture is one of Russias strengths. She has vast tracts of prime land. Focus should be made on allowing privatised agriculture to develop, giving farmers an incentive to develop the land. Improve the roads so that they may ship these to the ports or major cities (Russia has had bad roads but good railways).
Encourage the restructuring of state-run farms and encourage the growth and expansion of smaller plots. Give loans to farmers with low interest rates so they may buy farming equipment and land. Introduce fiscal responsibility, encourage market economy, sell off the corporate farms, remove state control of much of agriculture. Encourage foreign investment. Improve grain storage facilities.
That is one example. Russia's economic policies are much more sane these days, but they've inherited the problems of the USSR obviously. If they focus on Agriculture as one, they could become one of the worlds major food exporters, like they were a century ago.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;44815254]Focus on a diverse economy, much like the one slowly developing before WW1 or in the 1920s before Stalin introduced the 5 year plans.
Agriculture is one of Russias strengths. She has vast tracts of prime land. Focus should be made on allowing privatised agriculture to develop, giving farmers an incentive to develop the land. Improve the roads so that they may ship these to the ports or major cities (Russia has had bad roads but good railways).
Encourage the restructuring of state-run farms and encourage the growth and expansion of smaller plots. Give loans to farmers with low interest rates so they may buy farming equipment and land. Introduce fiscal responsibility, encourage market economy, sell off the corporate farms, remove state control of much of agriculture. Encourage foreign investment. Improve grain storage facilities.
That is one example. Russia's economic policies are much more sane these days, but they've inherited the problems of the USSR obviously. If they focus on Agriculture as one, they could become one of the worlds major food exporters, like they were a century ago.[/QUOTE]
So basicly you say that country with one of the largest stocks of natural resouses in the world and great industrial and scientific potential should turn itself into a one big farm? As you said, we were the largest food producers once, and this led us to a major lag and stagnation of other industries and sciences. Almost all factories and productions in those days Russia were built and maintained by foreign companies, and we couldn't even build our own ships or trains, which is unacceptable for such a big country. Basicly we were a one big banana republic.
We need to get rid of resourse based economy, and you just propose to change the resource form oil to food which is cheaper anyway. So yeah, diversive economy is cool, and agriculture is important, but giving away heavy industries or space just in favor to become a biggest cafe in the world would be just dumb. What would be a real diversive economy is to have all it's sectors developed. We have a gap in technologies like electronics that must be filled first anyway.
[QUOTE=antianan;44815336]So basicly you say that country with one of the largest stocks of natural resouses in the world and great industrial and scientific potential should turn itself into a one big farm?[/quote]
[quote]That is one example.[/quote]
[quote]As you said, we were the largest food producers once, and this led us to a major lag and stagnation of other industries and sciences. Almost all factories and productions in those days Russia were built and maintained by foreign companies, and we couldn't even build our own ships or trains, which is unacceptable for such a big country. Basicly we were a one big banana republic.[/quote]
Is there a problem with importing machinery and equipment?
[quote]We need to get rid of resourse based economy, and you just propose to change the resource form oil to food which is cheaper anyway. So yeah, diversive economy is cool, and agriculture is important, but giving away heavy industries or space just in favor to become a biggest cafe in the world would be just dumb. What would be a real diversive economy is to have all it's sectors developed. We have a gap in technologies like electronics that must be filled first anyway.[/QUOTE]
A diverse economy is good, but for decades Russia has massively neglected agriculture in favour of developing top heavy industry focused primarily on supporting the military.
As it stands right now, Russia wastes too much of her resources on expanding the military and trying to hold onto Moslem republics that don't want to be a part of Russia. If Russia granted independence to them it wouldn't need to spend resources on such a big military to keep the country together, plus there would be less terrorist attacks and ethnic conflict. A smaller downsized military would free up resources for things which are actually useful, like consumer goods.
[QUOTE=The Aussie;44813989]Yeah, in the purges in the fucking thirties and fourties. There still was obviously labour camps and shit, but it was a totalitarian state.
I want to rephrase that.
It's unfair to compare the reign of Stalin to post Stalin leaders of the Soviet union. Did you know the first secretary of the USSR (kind of like the president) actually denounced Stalin as a monster immediately afterwards? Fifties Soviet union was actually quite good. Good scientific progress, good economic growth, excellent heavy industry, then Leonid got into power and kind of stumbled the USSR into stagnation. I'd imagine that a lot of people would want the return of fifties soviet union. The only really bad part about the fifties was the lack of consumer goods. That's because Stalin didn't give a fuck about his people and decided to sink manpower and resources into heavy industry instead of consumer goods.[/QUOTE]
they still had fucking awful conditions in the 50s, 60s, somewhat better 70s followed by horrible 80s
they had poorly trained engineers, poorly trained workers, propaganda machines everywhere spreading misinformation about the state of the union, secret police, regular police, party police, conscription, 90% of the eastern bloc countries were straight dictatorships that hemmoraged the publics funds on grand works, and oh ya that whole lack of free speech thing that Russians seem to enjoy too much lately, salted with massive corruption by all parties, and lack of concern for worker safety made the USSR a real shithole and even rose colored glasses can't change that
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;44815521]
As it stands right now, Russia wastes too much of her resources on expanding the military and trying to hold onto Moslem republics that don't want to be a part of Russia. If Russia granted independence to them it wouldn't need to spend resources on such a big military to keep the country together, plus there would be less terrorist attacks and ethnic conflict. A smaller downsized military would free up resources for things which are actually useful, like consumer goods.[/QUOTE]
But does this not make Russia seem weak, from a political standpoint?
The world will surely sensationalize it by claiming "Russia is falling apart due to struggling economy", which will in-turn act as a disincentive for the Russian people themselves, as most will lose faith in the government - at which point less work will be done, and other separatist groups will form/become stronger. Who will then, inevitably, cause trouble to promote whatever ideologies they represent. Effectively replacing the terrorists who came from the now newly independent regions.
To say nothing of their own questionable, respective abilities to actually run their own countries, how capable most of them are at being 'independent'. I highly doubt that the only thing extremists really want is independence. Is there a single shred of evidence to guarantee them being quiet and peaceful after independence is granted? Surely, when it comes to extremists, you can never know. For all the Russian government knows, you give them an inch and they may very well take a mile.
Most of your ideas are very insightful, but I think they lack pragmatism. It can't ever be as simple as you describe it.
[QUOTE=Sir_takeslot;44814016]Well, considering most Russians don't know who built the Berlin wall, this isn't surprising.[/QUOTE]
I once talked with a Russian who said the Allies didn't join the war with Germany until 1944 in order to bleed the Soviet Union, then said that NATO started the Cold War.
[editline]15th May 2014[/editline]
Also I don't think Sobotnik is saying Russia abandon all and become a giant farm, I think he's saying that Russia has vast fertile lands that they're completely neglecting because they only focus on industry. You can put resources into getting a good farming economy going without focusing solely on heavy industry. Besides you know what farms need? Machinery, tractors, mills, etc. Use some of that industry to support the expansion of the agricultural sector.
Maybe those who suffered under the oppressive USSR regime are just not alive anymore? :v:
[QUOTE=laserguided;44813849]This is a PEW opinion poll. It's accurate, and consistent with earlier results. The majority of Russians miss the USSR.[/QUOTE]
The sample size is so laughably small that the poll would have bee just as accurate if they had knocked on my door and asked. And I don't even live in fucking Russia.
The poll's a joke and so is anything based on this poll.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;44815152]the last political prisoner camps weren't disbanded until the 1980s
scientific research was heavily biased in favour of physics and space travel. the ussr contributed almost nothing to the field of biology
agriculture never recovered, with the result that the ussr eventually had to import food, despite them having some of the best agricultural land in the world
the eastern bloc countries had to send off most of their resources to russia
it still repressed minority groups, banned freedom of speech and religion, and had internal rebellion constantly
the ussr didn't fall apart because of leonid. it was already going that way, and the economic "Progress" consisted largely of them proudly announcing how much steel or grain they had produced and focusing on increasing these raw figures
the ussr had science only because it served political ends. their heavy industry was completely unnecessary and when people complain about russias loss of industry, that's actually russia returning to where it should be.[/quote]
I never said that they didn't have labour camps.
USSR had a scientific bias, they had primary interests in military applications of sciences. They also focused biology mostly on biological weapons.
Yeah, because not enough farm equipment, fertilizer and such was being produced. It was looked over in favour of heavy industry. Like i said.
Yeah
I hate stalinism. I like marxism (well, marxist socialism, which is a bit of an oxymoron). In my opinion stalinism kind of scared away from socialism. Point is, i'm not supporting a totalitarian state. So no.
Ignoring the increasing GDP, living conditions and general progress made by a country that wasn't an industrial nation 50 years before stalins death. Seriously.
Yeah. Innovation died in the USSR because there wasn't any competition. However i doubt that the American wanted to get to the moon because they didn't want to show up the USSR. USSR won the space race imo, they did have the the first man, satellite, woman, animal, space station and robot on the moon. Americans have people on the moon but that's cool i guess. We still use soviet designed rockets too.
Yeah, i guess that's what a quarter of a century of "love this guy or you'll be shot or maybe we'll just shoot you anyway" does to a population. Stalin's cult of personality was incredible. Even after de-stalinisation.
[editline]16th May 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;44815254]Focus on a diverse economy, much like the one slowly developing before WW1 or in the 1920s before Stalin introduced the 5 year plans.
Agriculture is one of Russias strengths. She has vast tracts of prime land. Focus should be made on allowing privatised agriculture to develop, giving farmers an incentive to develop the land. Improve the roads so that they may ship these to the ports or major cities (Russia has had bad roads but good railways).
Encourage the restructuring of state-run farms and encourage the growth and expansion of smaller plots. Give loans to farmers with low interest rates so they may buy farming equipment and land. Introduce fiscal responsibility, encourage market economy, sell off the corporate farms, remove state control of much of agriculture. Encourage foreign investment. Improve grain storage facilities.
That is one example. Russia's economic policies are much more sane these days, but they've inherited the problems of the USSR obviously. If they focus on Agriculture as one, they could become one of the worlds major food exporters, like they were a century ago.[/QUOTE]
The NEP was a work of fucking genius by Lenin. It can show what the "breadbasket" of europe can do.
[editline]16th May 2014[/editline]
Although to be fair, the Germans razed the fuck out of the entirety of western Russia.
[editline]16th May 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Sableye;44815539]they still had fucking awful conditions in the 50s, 60s, somewhat better 70s followed by horrible 80s
they had poorly trained engineers, poorly trained workers, propaganda machines everywhere spreading misinformation about the state of the union, secret police, regular police, party police, conscription, 90% of the eastern bloc countries were straight dictatorships that hemmoraged the publics funds on grand works, and oh ya that whole lack of free speech thing that Russians seem to enjoy too much lately, salted with massive corruption by all parties, and lack of concern for worker safety made the USSR a real shithole and even rose colored glasses can't change that[/QUOTE]
I'm going to say this right out that i trust your opinion less since you're american. The simple fact that a lot of cold war red scare/propaganda still lingers is enough. Furthermore, USSR was a single party state with no factions (Lenins reform in 1920 i think?), the "poorly trained engineers" build some pretty impressive works such as the space industry, a kick arse railroads system, and some pretty neat industry. Not dictatorships, more totalitarian. Cronyism. Totalitarianism doesn't like free speech, surprise surprise.
[QUOTE]So basicly you say that country with one of the largest stocks of natural resouses in the world and great industrial and scientific potential should turn itself into a one big farm? As you said, we were the largest food producers once, and this led us to a major lag and stagnation of other industries and sciences. Almost all factories and productions in those days Russia were built and maintained by foreign companies, and we couldn't even build our own ships or trains, which is unacceptable for such a big country. Basicly we were a one big banana republic.
[/QUOTE]
You're just quoting the same problem we had here, correction, we still have here in Argentina.
He's not saying "Fuck off industry, hi agriculture"
He's saying "Develop first your lands, give more money to the primary sector and the boom the industry" because otherwise you won't be going fucking anywhere.
Don't believe me? Ask Peron and Frondizi. They had your same thought, and probably the same every protectionist has and ended up being fucked. Thing is you can't sustain an industry without having the raw materials produced in your country. You would end up in the same position, instead of importing secondary goods, you would be importing primary goods.
[QUOTE]Yeah. Innovation died in the USSR because there wasn't any competition. However i doubt that the American wanted to get to the moon because they didn't want to show up the USSR. USSR won the space race imo, they did have the the first man, satellite, woman, animal, space station and robot on the moon. Americans have people on the moon but that's cool i guess. We still use soviet designed rockets too. [/QUOTE]
Well, there was actually competition inside the USSR but not in the classical sense where the producers and businessmen cater to the needs of consumers.
This is a debated point up to this day, as there were many "bureaus"/factories which competed with each other in order to win resources from the state.
Thing is, they allocated more resources to military and science that helped boost their military power, this goes from things that make rockets fly to steel that builds tanks. No wonder why they had a fucking bazillion tank, planes, small fire arms and ship designs. Many where taken from the West but that info wasn't shared among all, and if it was shared among all, someone had to come up with the best practical application.
[QUOTE]Furthermore, USSR was a single party state with no factions (Lenins reform in 1920 i think?), the "poorly trained engineers" build some pretty impressive works such as the space industry, a kick arse railroads system, and some pretty neat industry. Not dictatorships, more totalitarian. Cronyism. Totalitarianism doesn't like free speech, surprise surprise.[/QUOTE]
You're wrong if you think that there were no factions.
BEFORE and AFTER Stalin was in power the USSR did had internal faction struggles. Stalin made it impossible for anyone to discuss his ideas due to the massive purges and punishments. Being a single party state doesn't free you from faction struggle.
I recommend to anyone interested in this, Morlino's text or summary about Lintz ideas.
And yes, you shouldn't include those quotes, because the USSR received a fucking shit ton of goods and info from the West in exchange for other goods...[B][I][U]the capital doesn't recognize lands nor banners[/U][/I][/B]....
[QUOTE]To say nothing of their own questionable, respective abilities to actually run their own countries, how capable most of them are at being 'independent'. I highly doubt that the only thing extremists really want is independence. Is there a single shred of evidence to guarantee them being quiet and peaceful after independence is granted? Surely, when it comes to extremists, you can never know. For all the Russian government knows, you give them an inch and they may very well take a mile.
[/QUOTE]
First and foremost of all, you are talking about a non-negotiable conflict, a conflict of values.
Those extremists will never agree to a middle point, they will either go all-in or lose all they got in the process.
Second, if you grant independence away, the base and majority of them will drop their weapons and return to their homes. Most Chechen joined the war because they wanted to remain free, not because they wanted to destroy Russia. The first is possible, the second, impossible. Fortunately, this is not a Balkans scenario where one of them goes all suicidal in a quest to destroy others.
Once their support has waned away, carrying on terrorist attacks on Russian soil will be harder. This is only and only if Russia establishes strong commercial links with the independent republics.
Yeah the collapse of the Soviet Union killed millions of people. So did the Soviet Union. I can't be surprised that those who lived in a former superpower want to see it restored. If the same happened here, we would want the same thing.
To be frank, you can't really credit the Soviet Union with being that great. For starters, the Soviet Union actively oppressed worker strikes. Which is the anti-thesis of it's entire existence. On the other hand, it also killed millions of people by working them to death. On the other hand, you didn't have a 100% chance of dying when you went to a gulag. There was also no social welfare net, you worked or you got sent to a gulag, where you worked or died. Once you served your time in a Gulag, you got the freedom to live in the same place, outside of the Gulag. Granted there was guaranteed housing, jobs, security, some personal freedoms. Free schooling. Free university if you were good enough. But there was no freedom of movement. No freedom of press or speech. The economy was terrible for most of the time it existed. Social mobility was extremely restricted to those with connections. It was more oligarchic after Stalin then democratic. Elections were rigged. Secret police. State propaganda was everywhere. It really was an oligarchic, authoritarian, totalitarian state. It wasn't trying to stamp out ingenious cultures with Russian culture though. But it was the largest arms manufacturer in the world.
Frankly it collapsed though because the system it had, just didn't work. The administration that planned the economy was massive, with a sluggish bureaucracy that could leave paperwork and requests for materials decades late. The economy was mostly driven off the inertia of the Second World War. Once these problems, coupled with a unrealistic perspective eventually ran itself into the ground, there was nothing stopping the economic collapse that ended in a political collapse. When you have a state that exists solely off off a broken economic strategy that doesn't work and doesn't follow it's own principles it's not gonna last.
I think the Majority of Russians forgets that their states aren't going to work to the bone to make Russia more prosperous anymore.
oh fuck offfff
[QUOTE=The Aussie;44816059]USSR had a scientific bias, they had primary interests in military applications of sciences. They also focused biology mostly on biological weapons.[/quote]
This isn't a good thing.
[quote]Yeah, because not enough farm equipment, fertilizer and such was being produced. It was looked over in favour of heavy industry. Like i said.[/quote]
Not even that. They built loads of tractors and fertilizer plants and such, but they were produced to serve /political/ ends, not economic ones. The peasant farms were collectivized for political purposes, and not for the wellbeing of the farmers or the economy.
[quote]Ignoring the increasing GDP, living conditions and general progress made by a country that wasn't an industrial nation 50 years before stalins death. Seriously.[/quote]
Russia was rapidly industrializing from about the 1890s onwards. I respect and admire Sergei Witte as one of the greatest Russians, because he actually did a lot more in trying to improve Russia as a whole, and the people of Russia.
Russia was doing a hundred times better in 1913 than in 1953.
[quote]Although to be fair, the Germans razed the fuck out of the entirety of western Russia.[/quote]
Russia recovered from WW1, the Revolutions, and the Civil war in the space of five years. War devastation is not an excuse for your countries inadequacies.
[quote]I'm going to say this right out that i trust your opinion less since you're american.[/QUOTE]
why should this even be relevant
[QUOTE=The Aussie;44816059]I'm going to say this right out that i trust your opinion less since you're american. The simple fact that a lot of cold war red scare/propaganda still lingers is enough. Furthermore, USSR was a single party state with no factions (Lenins reform in 1920 i think?), the "poorly trained engineers" build some pretty impressive works such as the space industry, a kick arse railroads system, and some pretty neat industry. Not dictatorships, more totalitarian. Cronyism. Totalitarianism doesn't like free speech, surprise surprise.[/QUOTE]
What the fuck are you talking about?
[QUOTE=The Aussie;44816059]
I'm going to say this right out that i trust your opinion less since you're american. The simple fact that a lot of cold war red scare/propaganda still lingers is enough. Furthermore, USSR was a single party state with no factions (Lenins reform in 1920 i think?), the "poorly trained engineers" build some pretty impressive works such as the space industry, a kick arse railroads system, and some pretty neat industry. Not dictatorships, more totalitarian. Cronyism. Totalitarianism doesn't like free speech, surprise surprise.[/QUOTE]
um its a proven fact they had very poorly trained engineers... while they taught math and physics and chemistry, they lacked the teaching to properly train engineers to look for solutions to problems, they were able to train tons and tons of engineers, just they had ludicris specializations such as ball bearing engineers, or paper engineers, or meteric gear engineers, the course work involved mainly soviet propaganda and the engineers were basically trained to solve the problem they were presented the way they were told to do so, instead of thinking of the best way to solve the problem or if the problem was even a problem. me being american means nothing, i didn't live through any of the red scare and ive done a fair bit of reading on the soviet union out of curiosity not propaganda. their space program only got so far because they poured billions (today) into it to build rockets on a crash-n-burn-and-fix mentality, where they would launch 5 rockets, by the time they got to the 5th it probably worked.
[editline]15th May 2014[/editline]
the fact is that the soviet union was a military industrial complex, something that president eisenhower understood very well and many others have also. they never would have gone to the moon because it served no military gain, they were so paranoid about everything they even went so far as to mount a 20mm auto-cannon on their space station which itself was actually a spy satellite. military states do not care about their workers or their people in general and they exist solely to cover their inadequacy with shear military strength.
[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;44813888]And they're a bunch of idiots too. Soviet oppression brought about one of the largest death tolls in human history. And these fools want to live under that same oppression again?[/QUOTE]
By that logic, the United States is evil for having killed potentially millions of Native Americans. As a Russian friend of mine put it, the Soviet Union could be changed. Russia under Putin is here to stay. He said that the current situation in Russia poses the ultimatum of "living in the dark or dying in the light."
I really am not sure what to say here...
Convert them to communism? v:v:v
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