Russia, Too, Could Have Been ‘Exceptional’. Just Like America!
Quoting Ron Unz:
Consider the fascinating perspective of the recently deceased Boris Berezovsky, once the most powerful of the Russian oligarchs and the puppet master behind President Boris Yeltsin during the late 1990s. After looting billions in national wealth and elevating Vladimir Putin to the presidency, he overreached himself and eventually went into exile. According to the New York Times, he had planned to transform Russia into a fake two-party state—one social-democratic and one neoconservative—in which heated public battles would be fought on divisive, symbolic issues, while behind the scenes both parties would actually be controlled by the same ruling elites. With the citizenry thus permanently divided and popular dissatisfaction safely channeled into meaningless dead-ends, Russia’s rulers could maintain unlimited wealth and power for themselves, with little threat to their reign. Given America’s history over the last couple of decades, perhaps we can guess where Berezovsky got his idea for such a clever political scheme.
(Find the original NYT article here.)
If only V. Putin had agreed…
Ah, if only. Just picture it:
- Freedom! Democracy!
- Open and fair elections!
- Three branches of government!
- Anyone can be president!
- And so on…
To quote Hyehudi Editor:
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” Remember these words, and you’ll never sweat an election.
As the famous poem goes about the road not taken (I MAY be misremembering here…):
“I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made absolutely no difference.”