The Era of Apathy

After a decade of being treated like children, Russia's electorate is finally finding its voice.

BY TANYA LOKSHINA | DECEMBER 12, 2011

MOSCOW — The scope of the protests that have followed Russia's Dec. 4 parliamentary elections, which protesters claim were rigged, have not only shocked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his cohort -- it has shocked the opposition as well. And Kremlin officials have no one to blame but themselves for this swelling protest movement.

The first protests kicked off that Sunday night, following the ballot, with a demonstration of approximately 5,000 to 10,000 people in the central Moscow area of Chistye Prudy. The protest turned ugly when riot police attacked protesters marching toward the Central Electoral Commission building, dispersing demonstrators, sometimes roughly, and detaining people at random. More than 200 of the detained -- including some opposition leaders, journalists, and well-known activists -- were held overnight in crowded cells with no food and no access to lawyers. Administrative trials started the next day, sentencing protesters to 15 days of incarceration, officially for resisting police orders but in fact for merely expressing their discontent with the authorities.

The following days saw more protests against Putin and the ruling United Russia party in Moscow and other large Russian cities. They culminated in a massive rally of over 50,000 people in Moscow's Bolotnaya Square on Dec. 10 (and this is a very conservative assessment, as the opposition is claiming approximately 100,000). The protesters were met with a massive police and military presence -- armored personnel carriers on the ground, roaring helicopters in the sky -- which spoke of potential trouble, but the day passed without a single provocative act by the demonstrators nor a single use of force by the police.

The demonstrators wore white ribbons on their coats, and many carried multicolored balloons and flowers, emphasizing the nonviolent and nonpartisan spirit of the protest. Smiling young women pressed white carnations and chrysanthemums on young uniformed servicemen, and some shyly accepted those gifts of peace, giggling like school kids. Democrats, communists, anarchists, radical lefties, and people with no political convictions chanted: "I'm a citizen of my state!" "We want fair elections!" "Our opinion matters!" That evening, state-owned television channels featured short reports about the massive demonstration. They simply had to.

What caused this extraordinary awakening of Russian citizens, who have previously appeared sullenly acquiescent to the erosion of democracy during the Putin era? Russia's Interior Ministry was quick to blame social networks for "threatening the foundations of the society" and "contributing to the rise in extremist views." Putin, predictably, is blaming everything on Western interference, bashing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for supposedly sending a "signal" to the opposition to destabilize Russia. In fact, however, two signature blunders by Putin's own regime served as the trigger for this current round of protests.

First, it all started with President Dmitry Medvedev's revelation on Sept. 24 that Putin would run for the Russian presidency next year, while he would lead United Russia in the parliamentary vote. Putin himself said, "I want to say directly: An agreement over what to do in the future was reached between us several years ago."

Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

 SUBJECTS:
 

Tanya Lokshina is a senior Russia researcher for Human Rights Watch.

MICHAELGERALDPDEALINO

11:34 PM ET

December 12, 2011

Three letters- KGB

Putin of the KGB, stop blaming the US, the West, or Batman for the desire for democracy in Russia. And, oh yeah, I'm not an American.

 

ACOMPANHANTESR7G

6:59 AM ET

December 13, 2011

Era can be also called

Yea, Rebelling against the bad. ...thanks for sharing !

 

RIGHTEMRIGHT

10:02 AM ET

December 13, 2011

Era of Revoloution

Yes this is era of revoloution.
The heart of the Revolution beat strongly in Seacoast New Hampshire. Four months before Lexington and Concord, Portsmouth had thrown off its British governor. George Washington's secretary Tobias Lear was a local boy. His father built John Paul Jones ship Ranger. NH militia outnumbered all others at Bunker Hill. These are stories still missed by most texts.

Benning Wentworth, political heir to his brother John, had been royal governor for nearly 25 years when the colonial kettle began to boil. He had grown fat and wealthy chartering scores of New Hampshire towns to the west, and keeping a piece of the action for himself. As Surveyor General of the King's Woods, he did a tidy business managing the seemingly endless state forests that, at the time, theoretically stretched from the Seacoast all the way to New York. Historians credit Benning Wentworth's corrupt, yet efficient political machine with shaping Portsmouth into a stylish capital city during a very difficult time in history. But a year later his personal excesses and passage of the unpopular British Stamp Act in 1765 convinced him to step aside in favor of nephew John Wentworth II.

A Portsmouth native and a strong opponent of the Stamp Act, John Wentworth was not in office a year when the Revenue Act, taxing fine goods such as glass and tea, was passed by Parliament. Now disgruntled merchants joined printers, lawyers and other professions in protest. Creating a new country was less on their minds than asserting their rights as "Englishmen." In the process of alienation, they were becoming Americans. When, in 1774, Governor Wentworth disbanded the local citizen's Assembly, they simply moved meetings to a tavern in Exeter where a Provincial Congress was in the making. Tavern owner Nathaniel Folsom and John Sullivan of Somersworth (soon to be New Hampshire's first "president") were elected to attend the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Local militias trained in the town commons. When Seacoast patriots stole 200 barrels of gunpowder from British soldiers at Fort William and Mary in nearby New Castle Island, they crossed a line that could never be uncrossed. No shots were fired in this early revolutionary act, just months before the shot heard round the world at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. Most of the New Hampshire regimen was quickly on hand for the Battle of Bunker Hill. Though rarely credited, the Granite State forces of over 1,000 men outnumbered the combined troops from both Massachusetts and Connecticut at this pivotal point in history.

When Governor Wentworth discovered a mob pointing a cannon at his Pleasant Street home, he took the hint. Wentworth removed his family to Boston and later to Nova Scotia where many towns were founded by fleeing New Hampshire loyalists.. Portsmouth, formerly the premier Loyalist haven, was now the only New Hampshire town without direct British government supervision.

From the orderly public reading of the Declaration of Independence, signed by two local citizens, to the close of the century, the Seacoast remained at the political center of the Revolution. Two of the new nation's first ships of war were built here. Portsmouth residents might had seen John Paul Jones, who lived there 18 months, or Lafayette, Paul Revere, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, even President George Washington striding down the narrow streets. The list of Seacoast dignitaries forms a Who's Who of the nation's founding fathers, now barely known but for the streets and historic houses that bear their names. Yet this is a time when the city grew wealthy from the exploits of privateers and when most of the state's 626 Black slaves (down to 158 in 1790 and to 8 by 1800) lived in the Seacoast. It was a time when public hangings were still possible, when poverty earned a prison term and the equivalent contributions of Revolutionary women are stories still waiting to be told.
Benning Wentworth, political heir to his brother John, had been royal governor for nearly 25 years when the colonial kettle began to boil. He had grown fat and wealthy chartering scores of New Hampshire towns to the west, and keeping a piece of the action for himself. As Surveyor General of the King's Woods, he did a tidy business managing the seemingly endless state forests that, at the time, theoretically stretched from the Seacoast all the way to New York. Historians credit Benning Wentworth's corrupt, yet efficient political machine with shaping Portsmouth into a stylish capital city during a very difficult time in history. But a year later his personal excesses and passage of the unpopular British Stamp Act in 1765 convinced him to step aside in favor of nephew John Wentworth II.

A Portsmouth native and a strong opponent of the Stamp Act, John Wentworth was not in office a year when the Revenue Act, taxing fine goods such as glass and tea, was passed by Parliament. Now disgruntled merchants joined printers, lawyers and other professions in protest. Creating a new country was less on their minds than asserting their rights as "Englishmen." In the process of alienation, they were becoming Americans. When, in 1774, Governor Wentworth disbanded the local citizen's Assembly, they simply moved meetings to a tavern in Exeter where a Provincial Congress was in the making. Tavern owner Nathaniel Folsom and John Sullivan of Somersworth (soon to be New Hampshire's first "president") were elected to attend the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Local militias trained in the town commons. When Seacoast patriots stole 200 barrels of gunpowder from British soldiers at Fort William and Mary in nearby New Castle Island, they crossed a line that could never be uncrossed. No shots were fired in this early revolutionary act, just months before the shot heard round the world at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. Most of the New Hampshire regimen was quickly on hand for the Battle of Bunker Hill. Though rarely credited, the Granite State forces of over 1,000 men outnumbered the combined troops from both Massachusetts and Connecticut at this pivotal point in history.

When Governor Wentworth discovered a mob pointing a cannon at his Pleasant Street home, he took the hint. Wentworth removed his family to Boston and later to Nova Scotia where many towns were founded by fleeing New Hampshire loyalists.. Portsmouth, formerly the premier Loyalist haven, was now the only New Hampshire town without direct British government supervision.

From the orderly public reading of the Declaration of Independence, signed by two local citizens, to the close of the century, the Seacoast remained at the political center of the Revolution. Two of the new nation's first ships of war were built here. Portsmouth residents might had seen John Paul Jones, who lived there 18 months, or Lafayette, Paul Revere, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, even President George Washington striding down the narrow streets. The list of Seacoast dignitaries forms a Who's Who of the nation's founding fathers, now barely known but for the streets and historic houses that bear their names. Yet this is a time when the city grew wealthy from the exploits of privateers and when most of the state's 626 Black slaves (down to 158 in 1790 and to 8 by 1800) lived in the Seacoast. It was a time when public hangings were still possible, when poverty earned a prison term and the equivalent contributions of Revolutionary women are stories still waiting to be told.

Benning Wentworth, political heir to his brother John, had been royal governor for nearly 25 years when the colonial kettle began to boil. He had grown fat and wealthy chartering scores of New Hampshire towns to the west, and keeping a piece of the action for himself. As Surveyor General of the King's Woods, he did a tidy business managing the seemingly endless state forests that, at the time, theoretically stretched from the Seacoast all the way to New York. Historians credit Benning Wentworth's corrupt, yet efficient political machine with shaping Portsmouth into a stylish capital city during a very difficult time in history. But a year later his personal excesses and passage of the unpopular British Stamp Act in 1765 convinced him to step aside in favor of nephew John Wentworth II.

A Portsmouth native and a strong opponent of the Stamp Act, John Wentworth was not in office a year when the Revenue Act, taxing fine goods such as glass and tea, was passed by Parliament. Now disgruntled merchants joined printers, lawyers and other professions in protest. Creating a new country was less on their minds than asserting their rights as "Englishmen." In the process of alienation, they were becoming Americans. When, in 1774, Governor Wentworth disbanded the local citizen's Assembly, they simply moved meetings to a tavern in Exeter where a Provincial Congress was in the making. Tavern owner Nathaniel Folsom and John Sullivan of Somersworth (soon to be New Hampshire's first "president") were elected to attend the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Local militias trained in the town commons. When Seacoast patriots stole 200 barrels of gunpowder from British soldiers at Fort William and Mary in nearby New Castle Island, they crossed a line that could never be uncrossed. No shots were fired in this early revolutionary act, just months before the shot heard round the world at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. Most of the New Hampshire regimen was quickly on hand for the Battle of Bunker Hill. Though rarely credited, the Granite State forces of over 1,000 men outnumbered the combined troops from both Massachusetts and Connecticut at this pivotal point in history.

When Governor Wentworth discovered a mob pointing a cannon at his Pleasant Street home, he took the hint. Wentworth removed his family to Boston and later to Nova Scotia where many towns were founded by fleeing New Hampshire loyalists.. Portsmouth, formerly the premier Loyalist haven, was now the only New Hampshire town without direct British government supervision.

From the orderly public reading of the Declaration of Independence, signed by two local citizens, to the close of the century, the Seacoast remained at the political center of the Revolution. Two of the new nation's first ships of war were built here. Portsmouth residents might had seen John Paul Jones, who lived there 18 months, or Lafayette, Paul Revere, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, even President George Washington striding down the narrow streets. The list of Seacoast dignitaries forms a Who's Who of the nation's founding fathers, now barely known but for the streets and historic houses that bear their names. Yet this is a time when the city grew wealthy from the exploits of privateers and when most of the state's 626 Black slaves (down to 158 in 1790 and to 8 by 1800) lived in the Seacoast. It was a time when public hangings were still possible, when poverty earned a prison term and the equivalent contributions of Revolutionary women are stories still waiting to be told.

Thanks

Admin of Clocks | Electric kettles