Russia's Version of the Patriot Act: The rule of absolute prostration

[Ivo Skoric]

American Neocons must admire Putin even more than their own guy. 
Let's see if Bush was Putin, and the governor of Masschussets wanted 
to allow gay marriages in his state, he would simply put the out-of-
line governor in prison in Texas, AND everybody would applaud him on 
the national TV. Bush luckily cannot do that. But Putin, abusing the 
recent terrorist attacks on Russia, just proposed giving himself the 
absolute powers to do so. As the September 11 events brought to the 
limitation of individual freedom and centralization of power in 
Washington DC to an extent, the Beslan events brought to the same in 
Moscow to an even bigger extent. Putin simply declared that all of 
Russia's 89 governors will from now on be appointed by him, instead 
of being elected by people of their regions (=States). This is a 
return to the Tsarist times (because the governors were always, at 
least formally, elected during Soviet Union, even if there was only 
one [communist] candidate). Over centuries the Russia's biggest 
problem was trying to control the biggest territory on the planet 
from one center. Both Tsarist Russia and communist Soviet Union fell 
apart because of inability to centrally control their vast country, 
while facing a foreign threat (of WW I, and of Cold War, 
respectively). Now Putin proposes to fight the terror threat by more 
centralization of power, although there are ample lessons in Russia's 
history that this is a failing strategy?! That seems to be absurdly 
dangerous - to declare a policy that would almost inevitably lead a 
politically unstable country to a greater political instability. I 
love Colin Powell's traditional understatedness, as he commented on 
the Putin's move: "we have concerns." Not that his own government did 
all the right things after 9/11, but Russia is clearly steering 
precisely in the wrong direction after Beslan. They need stronger 
regions, not stronger center, to deal with the terrorist threat.
ivo
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/international/europe/15russia.html?p
agewanted=1&th