<DIV>This is tiresome. If America were a democracy, Bush wouldn't be President. But we are not talking about Platonic ideals. The non-democarcy envisaged by the Soviet-era fans of Pinochet and acolytes of Kirkpatrick was a right wing dictatorship or military rule -- _no_ elections (not just unfair ones), no free speech, no civil liberties, Zyganov would have been in a concentration camp or dead under them, not lerading the opposition. This is too obvious to say. Please note that I also put "democrats" in scare quotes in describing Yeltsin and Putin. jks Chris Doss <itschris13@hotmail.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"> > >This was the line of Jean Kirkpatrick and her followers among some of the >pre-post-Soviet "intelligentsia." Turned out to be wrong there. "Democrats" >like Yeltsin and Putin were perfectly able to marginalize unacceptable >politics. jks --- If Russia had been a democracy, Zyuganov would have been president from 1996-2000. _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/search/mailsig/*http://search.yahoo.com">The New Yahoo! Search</a> - Faster. Easier. Bingo.