Putin tightens iron fist on Russia's elite classes

[dArKeR]

It was the day before Russia's parliamentary election campaign began that masked gunmen burst into the Moscow office of George Soros's Open Society Institute and carried away documents and computers belonging to the democracy-building organization.

The incident last week, coming on the heels of the imprisonment of billionaire tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, raised yet another outcry in the West about the political direction the country is taking...

According to recent opinion polls, almost three-quarters of Russians back Mr. Putin, many of them almost unquestioningly. In a country where the Stalin era is often recalled as a time when Russia was mighty, being seen as a strongman is a plus.

"Russia needs a strong leader," said Alexander, a 33-year-old selling painted matrioshka dolls with the President's face on them in downtown Moscow. "It's such a big country, with so many different ethnic groups, that it's very difficult to unite. It requires toughness."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031115.wputin1115/BNStory/Front/

What does 'Privatization' mean in Russian, Iraq, Cuba... selling the countries wealth to foreigners?

[Maple]

1. Russia has always had

a Czar.

Russia is used to a Czar.

Russia feels at home and comfy with a Czar.

Today's Czar is named Putin.

I don't think they care what anyone else thinks about it.

[Classical_Liberal]

2. There is reason to go after the oligarchs

but why haven't they officially charged him with anything, and when are they going to get the other ones?

[bemildred]

3. Putin does not want to remove the oligarchs.

He want's them to stay in their place and follow
orders when so instructed. In Russia, the government is
not (yet at least) a collection of corrupt prostitutes
servicing the corporate elites, they are still expected
to serve the national interest.

[Classical_Liberal]

4. How would charging, trying and convicting this man

of a crime be serving corporate elites? How is charging the other oligarch serving the corporate elites?

[bemildred]

5. Uh, it isn't, or wouldn't be.

That's not what I said.

[Darranar]

6. Putin is not the hero of this story...

he is as much crook as Khabadorsky, and is engaging in this for purely political concerns.

When the government's made up of crooks, re-nationalizing will solve nothing except change the ownership.

[jmcgowanjm]

7. Khodorkovsky's flunkies immediately fled to Israel

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1060829006862

http://www.joevialls.co.uk/myahudi/sunburn2.html

“The revolutionaries did not spend all of their
time listening to the pitiful screams of the
dying Savak torturers, but sent teams down
to the oil terminals to permanently shut the
gate valves on Israel’s free oil supply – for
ever. The reaction in Tel Aviv was delayed,
not unlike a crowd of junkies slowly awaking
from an opiate-induced trance.”

It's all about oil or drugs.

If Israel attcks Iran or Syria
TelAviv will be turned into
a sheet of glass w/in 3 minutes.