Posted on 12/10/2011 9:27:17 AM PST by MinorityRepublican
Thousands gather for Moscow protest
Tens of thousands of Russians turned out in central Moscow and across the country Saturday to protest what they believe were rigged parliamentary elections.
United Russia, the party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, suffered big losses in the election, but retained its parliamentary majority. On Saturday, protesters chanted "Putin out," according to a correspondent from state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
Between 20,000 and 25,000 protesters had gathered in the capital, Moscow, Ria Novosti said Saturday, citing police. There have been no reports of unrest and security has been tight.
Vladimir Ryzhkov, co-chairman of the Party of People's Freedom, said 40,000 people had massed and some 10,000 were headed to the main protest venue, the news agency reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Maybe we can get them to trade?
Putin will put these protesters down....and he isn’t going to take kindly to Barry stirring up these protests. Pretty soon the commies will be eating their own! Things are going to get “interesting” this election cycle
I am a bit surprised. I would have thought Putin wouldn’t allow this type of public behavior.
Red banners? I don’t know that the alternative is any better.
I thought that too! Once again God only knows about any of this crap... I'm skeptical about all protests after Obama led his Arab Spring.
I believe we’re in a new era. I have a lot of Internet friends in Russia and young people in particular, are not impressed by empty promises. The regime will change or it will be left behind by history.
This not just about a call for clean elections: Its a demand for freedom, transparency and greater prosperity.
Putin can heed it or someone in Russia will come along to give voice to what the people want.
And this cannot be suppressed by police with batons or soldiers in tanks.
That's 0.017% of all population. In a democracy such a tiny - but loud - group shouldn't have power to overturn results of a nation-wide election that they don't like for whatever reason. Today they may have a valid cause (rigged elections,) but tomorrow they may have a completely different cause. Do we want the US President being elected not by citizens of the country but by a ragtag crowd of 25,000 of unknown citizenship and allegiance? [Well, let's not discuss the theory that it's already happening.]
Really? Tell that to the Russians. I think they'll take a page out of Chinese's playbook.
The Communists have given people one of the few political vehicles available for peaceful protest and the party received votes from people who aren’t Communists, because they’re fed up with corruption and elite arrogance.
No one in Russia wants a revolution or violence. They do expect the authorities to listen.
Russia’s public are not crackpots, hot-heads or radicals. They are people from all walks of life who want change. One way or another they will get it.
Life punishes people who don’t change with the times.
My Russian friends speak highly of Putin....could never visit their families at their homes before Putin.
Most of the people who protested against the Czar were not Bolsheviks, but the Bolsheviks were the ones who were the most ruthless to take advantage of the situation.
Its more than that.... people don’t have fear. Something has been broken and the genie is now out of the bottle.
Society is not going to be passive and obedient and have things return to “normal” because things are not “normal.”
In winter weather, you expect few people to take to the streets - and yet a lot of them have come out.
The fraudulent elections have shown people can’t trust the system. United Russia may have received half the official figure and do you really believe the ruling party got 99.5% of the votes in Chechenya? Only if you’re a moron.
This is not going to go away any time soon.
This is not about a revolution. No Russian political party is calling for bloodshed or violence. This can be resolved when the government decides to have a dialogue with society.
And it really needed to begin yesterday.
Next week’s news will be how the protesters decided that Putin wasn’t all that bad and have dispersed peacefully. The sidebar will be about the new landfill at the outskirts of Moscow....
In sovietRussia Putin lets you protest because he is too busy kickboxing 3 Siberian Tigers.
Thanks to the impact of the Arab Spring, Russians finally have the guts to protest Putin’s regime.
“I’m skeptical about all protests after Obama led his Arab Spring.”
Me too....but I know that Putin is NOT a good a man. So, who would their alternative be?
Wondr if Obama is next? tsk tsk.
The opposition to Putin is broad but there is no single alternative. The opposition consists, in roughly equal numbers, of communists, pro-Western liberals and Russian nationalists and conservatives of every description.
The Putin regime likes to spin it two ways: the prominence of the communists they portray as if a return to communist dictatorship is the only alternative to Putin. This tale is mostly sold to the Western media. Domestically, and also through diplomatic channels they push the idea that the pro-Western liberals are fomented by the US in order to stage something similar to the Orange revolution in Ukraine.
The truth is that the Putin-Medvedev-Putin maneuver angered a lot of people, including those who initially liked Putin. While earlier putinism was tolerated as a way toward greater stability in a country tired of turmoil, now it is simply seen as a party “of crooks and thieves” as the slogan goes.
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