Tacoyah, how many languages do you know? I only know one fluently, and the other poorly, and regret that I don't more. I feel so limited and so deprived!
So you got a picture of Germans marching in some undisclosed city in Germany, Austria, or the Sudetenland from the GRU, NKVD, Kremlin archives. Good for you.
No they are not. I am well aware of Russia's nasty history - including second hand experience. I have loads of Romanian friends - some who escaped during Ceausescu's reign. Have heard the stories that they heard from their parents and Grandparents of when the Russians came. Needless to say they hate Russians... and I am a voracious consumer of History in general and do not care much for Russian's either. That said ... to claim that Stalin's Russia is the same as Russia today under Putin is simply false - it is nonsense. When you compare individual liberty in Russia to the US .. Obviously US is less totalitarian but, this does not change the fact that we are moving in the direction of quazi totalitariaism. It is a mistake actually, to try and compare totalitarianism in the US to "Stalin's Russia" or Mao's China. We should not expect it to look like this and it may not ever look like that directly. What is striking is comparing the factors that led to, and existed prior to nasty totalitarian regimes. Russia can to to hell in a handbasked for all I care. What I do want is for us to go down the path of Totalitarianism.
Really? https://www.tallahassee.com/story/o...allels-fascism-us-overlook-opinion/782625002/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Heusinger http://time.com/3880961/american-nazis-in-small-town-usa-1937/ https://itsgoingdown.org/need-know-nazi-rally-charlottesville-va/ https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2...-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar I can find more. And now you support Ukraine. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ov-brigade-nazis-abuses-separatists/24664937/ And who is fascist my friend.
As a juxtoposition to collectivism it most certainly does. Its crony-capitalist for certain, but no more than ours is corporatist.
crony capitalism...that's romantic and watered down. It's a fascist, kleptocratic dictatorship that supports an oligarchy. It's,essentially, a new feudalism. Go ahead, try to enter an industrial market in Russia. You cannot. Try to compete in the market against a nepotistic (blood aside) oligarch. You cannot. Only the annointed Lords may do this.
What American way? The way we were, and the way the Founding Fathers envisioned us, or the way the liberal one world order freaks have turned us into?
America isn't far behind. Or wasn't a few years ago. Its slowly trending away instead of toward... but corporations have lobbied for so many regulations that small businesses who can't absoarb high initial operating costs hasn't got much of a shot, especially new ones. The russians have to pay the mob in bribes, and we have to pay the government in certifications and permits.
I don't think the mobs are there anymore, but the bribes for favors are. It's a way of life in some parts of the world, so it's hard to change - but they're getting there.
I understand that Russia is ruled by an oligarchy but look at Saudi Arabia they have a horrible human rights record