Turns out Russia is the real free speech haven. Snowden isn’t the only American who went to Russia to escape political persecution…
In all seriousness, Snowden didn’t go to Russia. He was on his way to South America (probably Bolivia, Ecuador, or Venezuela) when his passport got cancelled and he got stuck in Rudsia. The EU even grounded Morales’ presidential plane thinking Snowden was in it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
It’s so dumb that we can’t just like… go places
Oh, no no no, you can’t cross the invisible line without your little stamperino
It’s wild to think that about 100 years ago is when passports started being a thing.
Yes, but both internal and external travel restrictions are as old as the states themselves.
Ah yes, remind me what happened almost 100 years ago
Photographs and WWI, basically. It’s a bit hard to identify people with just written descriptions, and the war gave a reason to discriminate against certain groups for “spying” or whatever.
What makes it even more fucked up is that in a lot of cases border control was created to turn back jewish people who were fleeing the nazis.
And it’s lucky that he did. If Julian Assange had gotten stuck in Russia too instead of trusting the Ecuadorian embassy to protect him he would be a free man today.
Idk… I would ask Navalni what he thinks.
EDIT: People I didn’t say he is a saint or a good guy, just putting an example of a guy I know famous enough that criticized Putin or just for being it’s opposition and getting punished for it. Not saying he didn’t do other stuff…
Sur ether are other examples, for example recently people criticing the war but they are not famous examples…
Navalni is literally a comically evil Putin, all his positions are identical to Putin just even more nationalistic. You know nothing about him. He is essentially a Neo Nazi.
Im not a Russian domestic politics expert by a long shot but from what i see, a lot of these people liberals joke about “getting pushed out the window” seem worse than Putin
(Although i would like to hear what Russian communists say about that)
As a resident Belarusian comrade (close enough I guess), that is basically almost always the case. They always chose some absolute ghoul, and because westerners don’t know the language or care enough to check the policies, no one double checks what those ghouls are saying.
In the example of Navalni, he is an ethnonationalist and “national purist”. He is literal scum. If Putin is reactionary, Navalni is a fascist.
Why was he popular? He watched Rick and Morty on Reddit. I shit you not.
because westerners don’t know the language or care enough to check the policies
Maybe your common internet commentator does not check. But the western intelligence agencies check. They want someone like him in power in Russia over Putin. For 1) they’d own him, clearly they’ve done a lot for him and he would likely work with them, for 2) because he is a Nazi and ethnonationalist he would do for them what they’ve long sought to do which is break up Russia into smaller manageable ethnic chunks they can color revolution and control, his policies would drive and allow their intelligence agencies to further instigate into independence movements or at least long-burning terrorism that bogs down the state these tensions he’d create with the many ethnic groups in Russia. He’s perfect for their aims. His views perfect.
I agree, but for clarification in my original comment I was referring to common everyday people. Not governments or intelligence agencies.
not asking the guy who called immigrants “cockroaches” anything
yeah go ask a neonazi mi6 asset lol
Navalni is washed, he fell off. Guaido is the real rival to Putin.
:heart_eyes: the people’s president!
Navalny is a convicted criminal.
Sure but criticing Putin for sure was part of it. I am not saying he is a saint.
… oh wait, you’re being serious
Well yeah… It’s the only guy I know famous enough to being criticing Putin getting punished for it. Not saying he is a saint or whatever or that he didn’t do other stuff I don’t know the guy enough for that, but that the main reason is criticing Puting sure. Sure enough there might be other people detained for criticing Putin, specially recently about the war but I don’t know know them.
Video: Alexei Navalny Compares Muslims to Cockroaches, Supports Gun Rights in Russia (2007)
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny advocates for gun rights in Russia, while comparing immigrants and Muslims from Russia’s southern regions to cockroaches and suggests they need to be exterminated.
The U.K. arrested almost 10 times as many people for social media posts as Russia did last year. Now maybe we could say they should be arresting more fuckers like Navalny. Haha
Well yeah… But most don’t get years on prison that’s for sure and much better and humane prisions for sure.
In any case yeah the UK is pretty shitty as well on that I agree, specially on the late governments.
They’re not locking people up for being communists, unlike post-2014 Ukraine (locking up is putting it mildly they are torturing people to death openly on Telegram). Here in the US people are getting harassed by the FBI for being Chinese. They should be going and shutting down the people spreading hate speech here, but they’re into it.
and much better and humane prisions for sure.
Source: I made it the fuck up
Well yeah, I don’t think I need one, it’s pretty common knowledge. Yeah they are not Switzerland prisons either not gonna says the stay will be awesome, and tbh it shouldn’t be for some motherfuckers…
Just gonna give you a serious reply since maybe you’re just genuinely surprised or uninformed. We don’t believe there’s “true” “free speech” anywhere in this world today, because the concept itself is entirely fictional, while you’re taking us being facetious as us advocating for Russia being a “free speech haven”.
Thanks for your reply, that helped.
Nazivalni?
Liberals and Fascists - name a better duo
Duo?
Uno
I get what you are saying and I think it is important for people to remember that Russia is not Cuba or Vietnam or even China, and if they could get something out of surrendering people like Snowden, they would.
Noo not like that
In 1991, in the context of the destruction of the Soviet Union (Cuba’s largest trading partner), with neighbors salivating at the prospect of capitalist restoration, a Mexican journalist asked Fidel Castro, “why do you not allow the organization of people who think differently, or open up space for political freedom?” He answers frankly:
We’ve endured over thirty years of hostility, over thirty years of war in all its forms — among them the brutal economic blockade that stops us from purchasing a single aspirin in the United States. It’s incredible that when there’s talk of human rights, not a single word is said about the brutal violation this constitutes for the human rights of an entire people, the economic blockade of the United States to impede Cuba’s development. The revolution polarized forces: those who were for it and those who, along with the United States, were against it. And really, I say this with the utmost sincerity, and I believe it’s consistent with the facts on the ground, but while such realities persist, we cannot give the enemy any quarter for them to carry out their historical task of destroying the revolution.
(This implies, for example, that political dissidence will not have a space in Cuba?)
If it’s a pro-Yankee dissidence, it will have no space. But there are many people who think differently in Cuba and are respected. Now, the creation of all the conditions for a party of imperialism? That does not exist, and we will never allow it. [8]
As far as I can tell, on this score, there’s only two main differences between Fidel Castro and Western leadership. The first is that he stands for anti-imperialism and socialism, and they for imperialism and capitalism. And the other is that he’s honest about what Cuba does and why, whereas capitalist states brutally crush communist organization with mass-murder and imprisonment — COINTELPRO, Operation Cóndor, Operation Gladio, etc. — then simply lie about embracing plurality. Just think here about the notion of white North Americans celebrating “Thanksgiving.”
And I tend to think that this is, in the final analysis, the crux of the matter. The question of “free press” and “free speech” is not separable from the question of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie versus the dictatorship of the proletariat. The idea of “political plurality” as such turns out to be the negation of the possibility of achieving any kind of truth in the realm of politics, it reduces all historical and value claims to the rank of mere opinion. And of course, so long as someone’s political convictions are mere opinion, they won’t rise to defend them. And so the liberal state remains the dictatorial organ of the bourgeoisie, with roads being built or legislation being passed only as commanded by the interests of capital, completely disregarding the interests of workers. Under regimes where political plurality is falsely upheld as a supreme virtue, the very notion of asserting oneself as possessing a truth appears aggressive and “authoritarian.”
Every socialist government that has been unable or unwilling to silence the opposition has been brutally crushed. It is no surprise that the opposition in these countries is always sponsored by the United States.
This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask: “Who was right?”
In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?
Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington.
Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence of a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported – what the rich countries said, rather than what they did.
That group was annihilated.
—Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method
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The American liberal, faced with this reality, tends to concede that truth is in fact drowned out by a relentless tide of spin and propaganda. Their next move is always predictable, however. It’s another lesson dutifully drilled into them in their youth: “At least we can dissent, however unpopular and ineffectual!” The reality, of course, is that such dissent is tolerated to the extent that it is unpopular.
Big-shot TV host Phil Donahue demonstrated that challenging imperial marching orders in the context of the invasion of Iraq was career suicide, when a leaked memo clearly explained he was fired in 2003 because he’d be a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.” [5] The fate of journalists unprotected by such wealth or celebrity is darker and sadder. Ramsey Orta, whose footage of Eric Garner pleading “I can’t breathe!” to NYPD cops choking him to death went viral, was rewarded for his impactful citizen journalism by having his family targeted by the cops, fast-tracked to prison for unrelated crimes, and fed rat poison while in there. [6] The only casualty of the spectacular “Panama Papers” leak was Daphne Caruana Galizia, the journalist who led the investigation, who was assassinated with a car-bomb near her home in Malta. [7] Then there’s the well-publicized cases of Assange, Snowden, Manning, etc. That said, I tend think to such lists are somewhat unnecessary since, ultimately, most honest people confess that they self-censor on social media for fear of consequences. (Do you?)
In other words, the status quo in the West is basically as follows: you can say whatever you want, so long as it doesn’t actually have any effect.
I wonder what he’s up to now… I hope he’s doing well!
Last I heard he got Russian citizenship and seemed to be generally happy living in Russia.
Love that for him
Yeah, he did a huge service to the world and he played it smart not letting the empire get him in the end.
Unrelated Obama?
Little known fact - Obama was president when Snowden became a whistleblower on the US intelligence aparatus
I didn’t realize Obama single handedly controlled the entire US justice system
Another little known fact - the president as head of the executive branch is the top official in the enforcement of US law. They even appoint the US Attorney General who heads the the Justice Department - the ultimate law enforcement apparatus in the US.
He can override it with pardons
Ah yes the narrative of “The president doesn’t actually have any power” a common one used to justify voting for trump.
Reading must be difficult for you if you can’t understand the difference between “The president doesn’t single handedly control everything” and “The president has absolutely no power”.
I forgot lemmee users don’t think before they post. They just vomit whatever latent thought happens to pass through their mind at the time.
