Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Opposition politics in Russia: Interview with Maxim Katz" video.

  1. I guess that things will be like it was with the Iraq war in 2003 which the American people strongly supported. Most americans were okay with a an unprovoced war of aggression, they were okay with torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, they were okay with their government behaving like an a$$hole towards European countries. They were okay with a government that took away one human right after another... they were okay with the government spying on the American people. They were okay with suspending habeas corpus and that the government could keep a person in detention for unlimited time. They were bullying any anti-war protestor and calling them "anti-american", and if you protested the government for any reason - even for things that did not have to do with the Iraq war, you could get labeled as "anti-american" or "unpatriotic" and lose your job as a school teacher. This was what USA was like in the years 2003-2006. The American people even voted for the fascist idiot George W Bush to become president for 4 more years after all the evil shit that he had done. He had jacked up USAs national debt with trillions. He had started a war that killed 600.000 innocent Iraqis. He was the first president in US history that never used a veto to block a government project to keep government spending down - and unsurprinsingly did he spend more dollars than all other presidents before him had done combined! He was wasteful with money. He was bloodthirsty. He was fascist towards Iraqis, but also to a lesser extent also towards Europeans which he treated arrogantly with the belief that USA was the worlds only superpower and could treat anyone else how they liked. He was also a believer in American exceptionalism, so per defintion was America always a power for good in this world according to his mind - even when it did bad and evil things. He silenced any anti-war sentiments by labeling them as "unpatriotic". So either you were for George W Bush, or you were an anti-american traitor. So most people did choose to fall in line. And in most opinion polls did the war in Iraq remain popular among the American people. People were ignorant. Many could not even point out where Iraq was on a map. Truth to be told, most Americans did not care. They did not care about foreign policy and the things which were going on outside their own country. It did not matter to them. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis could die and they did not care. Instead did they feel self-pity about all Americans who had died in this stupid pointless war. And instead of blaming Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Powell for this mess did the warmongering American right-wingers spew their hatred on muslims instead. And one American rightwing politician suggested that Arabia should be nuked and that the sand should turn into heat from the nuclear bomb. And on TV you could see Fox news pumping out lies and pro-war propaganda nonstop, and rightwing media personalities like Ann Coulter who strongly supported "The war on terror" in Arabia and the middle east delievered the following statement: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." I think that quote well sum up the worldview that almost all Republicans had back then. Not just Bush and his government was pro-war, but so was also the rightwing media such as Bill O'reilly, Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, and others. And the opposition were silent and afraid to say a single word. But then this all came to an end. The fall of the Republican party government did come. But it did not come because of the Iraq war. Nope. People were upset about things in their own home country instead. They were angry about the governments handeling of the hurricane Katrina and the devestation it had brought to New Orleans. Finally was someone allowed to criticise Bush's government. And that led to the fall in popularity for the Republican party. And that did allow for the democrats to win the next election. And in 2008 did the financial crisis come and people were tired of all wars and Obama promised to fix those things
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  2. Well those who are silent are useless allies. Thoughts and prayers will not help anyone. In a typical dictatorship you might got 10-20% evil crazies that are in power. 60% of the people are neutral. And then you got say 15-30% who wants freedom. Hitler never got power by gaining more than 50% of the votes. Only about a third of the Germans voted for him. So it was the silent majority who did not oppose his actions that allowed him to have his powers. Had the silent majority sided with his opposition, then he would have been removed quite quickly and easily. So seen from this perspective do I think the judgement on the useless silent majority that allowed evil to happen must be very hard. Think about it. Let's go back to medieval Europe. What if one day all people in the most powerful European country stopped seeing the King as their King. That they no longer believed that he was appointed by God or had any special qualities because his royal blood, but instead saw him just as an ordinary man. Imagine then what would the King do if his servants refused to treat him like a King? Should he ask his royal guard to punsih them? But what if they too then didn't see him as their King and refused to obey him because he was not any special. All of a sudden would all the power of the King just fade away. His paper of ownership of lands and castles would mean nothing and be useless. He would have no wealth or troops. So everything is just fantasy. His power only becomes real if people recognize him as their King. And the same goes with a dictator. If people refuse to follow him, then his regime falls apart like a house of cards.
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