On Mon, 20 Dec 1999 10:23:39 -0500 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
writes:
>A friend writes from Moscow: "The way everyone has been saying it's a
>triumph for democracy is crap -- Unity doesn't even have a party
>headquarters -- it's a complete puppet and its success is very
>depressing to me. It means voters can be totally manipulated: just
>dress the PM in a pinstriped suit, start a war, and the most massive
>machine in the entire country practically gets first place.
Gee, that sounds almost like a US election.
>The real
>triumph for democracy will be when the Kremlin is challenged, allows
>elections to go through, and loses."
>
But you got to understand it is not the triumph of democracy per se in Russia that people (i.e. the State Department, IMF, World Bank etc.) are concerned with but rather the triumph of US style democracy. As long as Russia remains hospitable to doing business with American corporations and financial institutions then as far as they are concerned democracy has indeed been triumphant in Russia.
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