RIP Navalny.
I remember him flying back from Germany to Russia after the poisoning. Watching Ricky & Morty with his wife.
Very brave, but incomprehensibly stupid.
If ever there was a person who had a justified claim to political asylum, it was him.
Navalny most certainly wasn’t stupid. He understood what he was getting into when he got on that flight back to Russia. My guess is that he hoped his arrest and detention would spark an uprising, which sadly didn’t materialize.
I would not have made the choice he did, but I’m also not as brave as he is. Fuck Putin.
I don’t think Navalny believed any resistance would be mounted for him - he might have had hope but I don’t think he counted on anything. I think he chose to go back knowing he would likely die. He chose to be a martyr to maximize the effect he’d have.
Maybe you should all watch the documentary “Navalny”, it literally shows you him and his wholeteams reactions on his way back to Moscow… Very harrowing but a must watch.
He understood what he was getting into when he got on that flight back to Russia. My guess is that he hoped his arrest and detention would spark an uprising
Then it seems like he really didn’t understand what he was getting into.
This comment: visualized
Brave, but not stupid. It was self-martyrdom—self-immolation. The only thing Навальный did not expect was just how long it would take Путин to crucify him. Now, at last, Путин’s fate is sealed, and by his own hand. Just like Israel, if the IDF pushes half of Gaza into Egypt.
Just fyi, I wouldn’t use the Cyrillic spellings like that because you haven’t conjugated them correctly so it just looks like you’re trying to seem more knowledgeable than you are of the russian language. But you also spelled the midget’s name wrong its “пидарас (pee-da-ross),” have fun triggering orcs with that one =)
I didn’t know хуйло fell out of fashion. Pidors may come in many shapes and forms, while хуйлуша is this one exact disgusting person. Let’s be precise in our despise.
There’s the polite and shy version of пуйло or хутин .
Thanks for mentioning it, but I don’t feel like I’m a polite or shy person talking about him (:
But I do immensely enjoy the ironically homophobic joke. Homophobic jokes are appropriate when making fun of a country of homophobes.
How did you get a homophobic joke from a pederast?
The English “pedarast” is not a great translation. Not vulgar, or like, swear-wordy enough. Doesn’t capture the Russian connotations. See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/пидарас
пидорас Russian
Alternative forms
пидара́с (pidarás)
пдр (pdr) (SMS slang)
пдрс (pdrs) (SMS slang)
Etymology
Deliberate mispronunciation of педера́ст (pederást, pedɛrást).
It then goes on to say
Noun
пидора́с • (pidorás) m anim (genitive пидора́са, nominative plural пидора́сы, genitive plural пидора́сов)
- (vulgar, offensive) fag, faggot (homosexual)
- (vulgar) asshole (mean or rude person)
I disagree with this. Using a characteristic of a person as a slur harms all people with that characteristic.
“Stupid” is a characteristic of stupid people. Do you disagree with its usage as well?
I use the Cyrillic spellings to better reflect pronunciation. I don’t give a fuck about Russian’s totally fucking insane grammar. I know Russian grammar. Only too well.
The first two are actually right. Both are nominative singular.
Only “Путин’s fate” is wrong. If I were to respect Russian grammar, but again, why?, it would be “fate Путина”.
Nobody else knows or cares how Cyrillic is pronounced versus the language the rest of everything written is. You’re just confusing people, especially if you don’t care about proper grammar to match your capricious language hopping.
Self-censored
That’s a funny clip but let’s be kind to each other. They were trying to be thoughtful in their own, admittedly unique, way
I wished to call out arrogant behavior in a fun way, but I may have been needlessly hurtful. I have edited my reply.
Were you confused by what I had typed?
Yeah, so much so that I had to tell you about it in that last comment I wrote.
Yes, I see. I’m sorry. I really thought it would be pretty clear what each Cyrillic name meant, even to people who had never read Cyrillic before.
I certainly was, it’s like you [redacted] didn’t want us to [redacted] but instead [redacted] you were saying about [redacted]. Get it?
Why respect the spelling and pronunciation but not the grammar? Seems kinda arbitrary.
It is not respect for the language. It is the minimum amount of respect every person gets when addressed by their true name. Even Путин deserves to be called by his true name. Though that is really all he deserves.
Haven’t these people read 1984? They don’t just kill you. They torture you until you say what they want to hear, and they keep you under close watch until the public forgets where you are. Then they kill you.
Exactly what happened
It wasn’t stupid at all. You missed the whole point of you actually think that
Easy to say now how stupid some decision was. Much more difficult to remember circumstances and agree that the person somewhat adequately calculated risks but above all made the only possible decision to continue his fight. Check out their movie.
This is a statement from his wife from the Munich Security Conference:
"Thank you to the conference for giving me the opportunity to speak. I’m sure you have seen the terrible news. I kept thinking, should I come here or go be with my children. And it occurred to me that if Alexei was in my shoes, he would be standing on this stage.
I don’t know whether to believe the terrible news we received from Russian government sources because for many years – and you all know this – we cannot believe Putin and his government; they are always lying.
But if it is true… I want Putin and his friends and his government to know that they will bear the full brunt of responsibility for what they did to our country, my family, and my husband. And that day will come very soon.
I want to call on the world community, everyone in this room, people all over the world to come together and defeat this evil, this reign of terror. Putin must be held personally responsible for the horrors he did to my country, our country, in the recent years. Thank you."
That poor woman and his children too. Fuck that disgusting human for killing him.
I fear that, sadly, you won’t have to feel sorry for Navalny’s wife and children for too much longer.
And we will keep allowing oligarchical tyrants like Putin to rob us and slaughter our heroes and communities. If we were better people we would’ve put a stop to this already, but the framers know we’re pathetic, which is why fascism will take over the world. For too many decades now I’ve seen movements, protests, demonstrations, voting, all these ways fail us time and time again, only making things slip into worse and worse situations. We need to stop playing the game by their rules, but we can’t even agree with eachother in Lemmy comment threads let alone organize to do anything that matters.
but we can’t even agree with eachother in Lemmy comment threads let alone organize to do anything that matters
That’s the point. They run psyops to keep us mad at each other.
A big part of the problem is that everyone worships this idea of ultimate freedom, that intrinsically includes by nature of its absolutism the accumulation of power (whether money, political, religious, etc.) Even Democrats and some progressives. Look at America’s political system right now, everybody’s screaming you have to vote for Biden to stop Trump but nobody asks why aren’t we pulling back executive power and strengthening our systems against abuse - because “D” OR “R” what good is the “freedom” to run for office of it doesn’t include the “freedom” to wield that power as you see fit?
There has to be a bar. On power, on money, and yes on freedom insofar as ones ability to hoard it via power and money. A handful of people can hoard like 80% of the world’s wealth but some asshole you never met across town can’t (not to minimize trans but from how it affects one from a 3rd party perspective) get a new haircut and wardrobe because they’re more comfortable as Laura than they are Steve? Eat a whole ass.
Yes, it’s a tricky proposition and not one we’re likely to breach, and likewise we’ll continue letting singular nut jobs wipe out huge swatches of innocent people in the name of “ultimate freedom.” There’s no easy right answer, but
A- We’ll never stop these issues until people learn to redefine this extremist vision of freedom
B- Everyone’s going to screech about “ThEn WhO mAkEs DeCiSiOnS tHeN?” and I’m going to go ahead and counter that with “how about we start with NOT nutters like Putin and Netanyahu? Then come talk to me.”
Just a couple of days ago someone told me Putin would never kill him because that would make a martyr out of him. What a timing.
RIP Nawalny. You died for something bigger than you.
Apart from the known one, russia has a long history of suppressed revolutions
I can think of at least 2 successful Russian Revolutions, actually.
He effectively killed him when he sent him to that prison.
Putin is a murderer. 400.000 + 1.
I never understood why the guy went back to Russia after they tried to murder him last time. There was really no other outcome that could realistically be expected. Was he really so keen on being a martyr?
Sometimes there are things a person chooses to do that are bigger than themselves.
He chose to allow himself to be a martyr. Hopefully it makes a difference, but it very likely may not.
Who knows, maybe his sacrifice paves the way for his successor.
His influence may not be obvious or immediate. We tend to think of history as being shaped by individuals, and in many cases it is, but often it’s not so simple. His actions may not inspire revolution tomorrow, but his name is going on a list that gets noticeably longer all the time, his body has been added to a pile that continues to grow into a mountain, and his actions will be remembered alongside the actions of many others that form a very strong narrative. Those things collectively will shape the future of Russia.
Also remember sometimes a revolution isn’t started by the revolutionaries on their schedule. Sometimes it starts when the opportune moment presents itself. I mean, Putin’s getting older, and doesn’t he look tired?
I agree.
I just feel like I understand why navalny went back to Russia, despite the obvious threat to his life.
He almost certainly didn’t die a clean death. I wouldn’t want to martyr myself the way he did.
Yes.
It’s not about being a martyr. Check out the Navalny movie. https://navalny-film.io/ maybe they will add English subtitles at some point soon, otherwise it’s available in streaming platforms and torrents.
That man had balls of steel, going back to Russia after being poisoned. o7
I never understood why he did. He had to know Putin was going to throw him in the gulag, and imo could have done a lot more influencing Russians from the outside rather than simply martyring himself and ruining the rest of his life. Now there’s absolutely no one standing up to Putin, and Nalvany is dead. Imo Russia is in a worse spot as a result.
Exactly. Going back to Russia was suicide.
It wasn’t even a dramatic suicide like the Vietnamese monk who set himself on fire and drew attention to a cause. It was a suicide that didn’t really draw any additional attention to Russia, and instead just silenced one of the critics who the world was listening to.
The last time he was in Russia Putin tried to murder him with a nerve agent, and that was only about 5 months before he turned himself in. While he was in Germany recovering from the poisoning, he was able to get the poisoner on the phone and trick him into confessing what had happened and how it had been done. That drew attention to Putin because it was such a dramatic story about tricking one of the agents.
But, flying to Russia to surrender to Putin? What exactly did he think was going to happen? What a waste!
It did draw extra attention, lots of extra attention actually. Navalny’s problems in the Russian prison system made the news frequently, regularly reminding everyone what a fucked up state Russia is. Immolating himself on the red square would have been far less effective since that’s been done a few times already (there’s been a few people who have immolated themselves there already). So as a suicide with a message/martyr for a cause, it was in my perception fairly effective at getting a message across I think. Point in case: we’re talking about it again even now …
Eh, there is more than one man with values to a country of 140mln, one would expect.
It’s just that this is not about standing up to someone. It’s like a toxic swamp. Like fighting windmills which can and will kill you.
I suppose this was an emotional decision, such a swamp breeds cowardice, and feeling cowardice in people around you (figuratively) may be unbearable. Which is maybe why he wanted to do that.
Fuck bravery, the man had a family. That’s stupidity. I rather my father be around.
And he had an amazing redemption ark from a typical neo-Nazi of the cowardly kind (no exaggerations, his LJ from late 00s and even a few amateur political ads be proof of that) to simply a hero (no exaggerations again).
But he shouldn’t have returned. It maybe was something aligning with the mood of defiance and felt right, but he really didn’t owe anyone to go back.
I have my country and my beliefs. And I don’t want to give up either my country or my beliefs. And I cannot betray either the first or the second. If your beliefs are worth something, you must be willing to stand up for them. And if necessary, make some sacrifices. And if you’re not ready, then you don’t have any convictions. It just seems to you that they are there. But these are not beliefs and principles, but thoughts in the head.
And he talks about just a month ago how his sacrifice is sitting in solitary. He either underestimated how brazen Putin is, or thought it’d eventually be some kind of martyr? A real shame he’s gone regardless.
I think he just overestimated his health and how (Russian) prison affects it. Bad nutrition, no sports, bad conditions - some place may be too hot, some too cold, there may be various fungi, and simple illnesses which you can easily treat outside prison are much more dangerous, because prison medics do not really care if you survive.
And, of course, that all is without the administration trying to kill you by sleep deprivation, sun deprivation and whatever else.
May he rise as a martyr the Russian people so desperately need.
Too bad, russian people are apathetic sheeps, so they wont do anything
While what you said is crass, it’s not incorrect. Russia has a very homogeneous population, and the culture among the older generations is to not question the government. Combined with a corrupt, burned-out police force that tortures activists, the average citizen is incentivized to keep quiet to avoid being the nail sticking out that needs to be hammered.
Such cynicism. They just let him rot, bullied him with arbitrary resasons to punish him more and the farce of endless legal battles where no one really cared about the law. He was a strong person, but there’s only that amount of pressure and mockery one can endure. I’m sad he died in captivity never to see the change of regime. That being said, he wasn’t a coward, and kept doing what he could right until the end.
RIP Alexey, another russian his country needed but wasn’t ready for.
Pressure and mockery? Pretty sure he died of physical abuse and malnutrition. He didn’t die because Putin made him sad.
From what I’ve read, he has been woken up at irregular hours, has been in a solitary confinement, has been denied contacts to his lawyers – the only persons who he could talk to. That’s from his prison close to Moscow, I don’t know what he endured in Harp. I suspect it was even worse.
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Just looked and they’re dancing on his grave over on hexbear. Classy bunch.
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Before they federated they nearly collapsed because of vegan infighting, I don’t know how they’re surviving the fediverse. Fwiw, they are the splinter site that sprouted up following Reddit’s banning of the Chapo Trap House subreddits.
Just did exactly that, and jumping shitballs, you weren’t lying.
Ya know, not been here that long, but seeing users ive tagged as “russian shill” being shat on in the communities that are not yet overrun by the trolls. Stay strong folks, and push back.
Also, inb4 the explanations given are: “waaahhh, any piece of news that doesnt come from the krem de la kremlin is propamaganda!!!”
Is that how you spell their name?? With the weird characters, I honestly thought that particular propagandist was called “Yugioh.”
Ya know, not been here that long, but seeing users ive tagged as “russian shill” being shat on in the communities that are not yet overrun by the trolls. Stay strong folks, and push back.
Also, inb4 the explanations given are: “waaahhh, any piece of news that doesnt come from the krem de la kremlin is propamaganda!!!”
Imagine, how weak and insecure Putin must feel to do this with any competition in his country…
Yeah this is the very opposite of a strong man move. Really weak look.
Edit: great quote from Blinken
His death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built.
I hope that someday the people of Russia know freedom, something they’ve never known since the Tsars.
The Russian people have NEVER known freedom. Ever. They’ve been a war like, oppressed people with Stockholm syndrome for their entire history
One of my teachers in high school (around 1986 or 1987) said that the Russian people were incapable of freedom. He said they wanted & needed an authoritarian ruler.
At the time I thought he was just buying into propaganda, but I’ve been thinking he may have been right.
But then, it’s starting to look like a huge portion of Americans don’t value their own freedom either. At least, they seem to be willing to trade their freedom for ensuring that the people they don’t like will suffer.
My personal theory is that there’s a biological split in our species. Like how some people taste soap when they eat cilantro and others don’t. I think some of us are wired to need and want a leader and others do not. The evolution of not needing a leader has not fully propagated to the whole species yet.
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This is an interesting theory and begs the question… From an evolution standpoint, which one would be more likely to win out?
It looks like every 20’s we have the leader thing win against the freedom thing. Then the leader kind of turns against the followers and the freedom thing resurfacss agqin. But since the freedom thing needs a lot of responsibility thing and people eventually fail to secure themselves the leader thing naturally arises again.
Edit: fixed a thing.
You want freedom? When someone out there is chopping off their oui-oui (pardon my French) all you think about is having freedoms? I thought this was 'Merica!
That would require bravery from a lot of people. Few have been as brave as Navalni. Let’s hope his death shakes people’s apathy.
Since before the Tsars. They kinda got wrecked by The Kahns before the Tsars.
They were briefly fairly free in the ‘90s, but the experience of their version of the shock doctrine was so painful that the people begged to be ruled again.
Yer, they got experimented on by free market maximalist. All regulations to no regulations. All public to all private, in a big fire sale. Those with money bought everything and became a new super rich ruling class. There was, understandable push back from that mess, but it swang too far back to authoritarian; but now with a new class of super rich calling the shots. Like Putin.
That’s not really true.
That’s what Putinists say, and what Communists say, and what Western leftists surely are pleased to repeat, but in reality privatization was simply conducted the way that people closer to the “reformers” could rapidly accumulate wealth. More like mafia plundering of Soviet industries and state property.
Obviously mostly illegal even despite the fact that state institutions were controlled by people involved in the process.
“Those with money” were not that, there were no such people in USSR, rather “those with party and bureaucratic connections” and “Yeltsin’s clan”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Shleifer#Scandal
“Those with party and bureaucratic connections” = “Those with money”. Power = money. Which order you put it in, doesn’t matter. Those will one, have the other, on or off the books.
It wasn’t the kind of power people with connections in USA have today, rather the kind to make a phone call to a court or to choose who privatizes a factory central to a town. The short-lived kind, because the properties plundered wouldn’t last for long. There would also be literal mafia wars (only I think I’ve read that actual Italian mafia doesn’t have much infighting, they are rational businessmen in some sense).
The point about this having nothing to do with free market stands.
How are backdoor deals not part of the free market?? They’re a natural consequence of information asymmetry.
Former soviet leadership using their connections to consolidate wealth and power the new system is imo not meaningfully different from the revolving door between American government and private industry and lobbying firms.
You don’t get it, I’m not talking about any information asymmetry, I’m talking about a factory boss privatizing that factory with his friends, some of which would have better connections with sporty guys in leather coats and some better connections with special services, so some of those friends and their friends would benefit more.
It wasn’t any “consolidation”, you are talking in terms of actually functioning states with properties and rights protected, it was literal plundering. Similar to the Octopus series in atmosphere, one can say. With plenty of murders, gang wars etc.
The problem was basically unregulated free for all. A free market only works with regulation and law enforcement. Free market anarchists are naïve. But it was a common thinking at the time. The 2008 crash seriously dented their voice.
It wasn’t “unregulated free for all”, that’s a leftist overvalued idea about Russian 90s. Laws were similar to what there is in Russia today, give or take, derived from Soviet laws. There just was a lot of open crime.
It simply doesn’t fit in that leftist narrative no matter how you turn it, if you don’t hide the reality completely behind such abstract phrases.
Free market anarchists are naïve. But it was a common thinking at the time. The 2008 crash seriously dented their voice.
How would it dent anything, being a direct consequence of protectionism?
No one begged to be ruled, let’s not be dramatic here.
Reactionary bullshit
nah, the collective trauma of perestroika gave origin to putin. only in its chaotic environment would someone that is at the same time political leader, criminal leader and oligarch leader come to be. russian people do vote for putin and his party. criminals either work for him either get exiled(see wagner group), sometimes its even worse to them and their family. oligarchs either nut up or shut up, bought by the relative safety of their families living in western europe.
addressing the reactionary bullshit comment, i can only infer that admitting the mistake of perestroika is a disturbing experience for you. but i recommend adam curtis documentary “hypernormalization” to understand putin and a part of the russian zeitgeist.
Do you always talk down to people?
i always try not to and am always sorry if i come out as such.
Ignore him, you’re the only one talking knowledgeably
yeah the other commenter forgets that one is not only writing an answer but also engaging in a larger conversation. let that one be a constructive one.
Answering the first comment in this idiotic thread …
1989-1993 counts as freedom, I’d say. So does 1905-1914.
Now, absolutism doesn’t offer much in that regard, neither does late feudalism. But that wouldn’t make Russia significantly different from many European countries till somewhere around 1848. Then it became butt buddies with similar monarchies against revolutions and stuff (saving Austria from Hungarian revolutionaries in particular), only, say, Austrian monarchy still made quite a few concessions and reforms, while Russia remained a swamp till the Crimean war, and then tried to reform itself.
One can say it was finally on track to modernizing between 1905 revolution and till 1914, but then WWI happened, and then the October revolution happened.
A flame has extinguished, i will light a candle
Why now? Russian election coming up, I guess Putin wanted to (a) remind any possible opposition what happens when anyone aspires to be a leader other than Putin, and (b) remove the chance of Navalny doing something unpredictable that cascades into a problem.
I mean yeah, that’s a pretty good set of reasons. Navalny was often re-tried on trumped up charges as a threat to opposition parties.
Or they’d been starving, torturing and mistreating him for a long time and this is when his body gave out.
Boris Nadezhdin is working on appealing the order preventing him from running.
And, since we know that Russia’s judiciary is independent and strong, we can trust that they’ll treat his appeal correctly.
I would really recommend the documentary Navalny:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navalny_(film)
I knew almost nothing about the guy prior to watching it, and what happens to him is fascinating. He’s not perfect but I do believe what he says and he really wanted a better Russia. The balls on this guy!!
Drives me a lil nuts that when something important like this is made and it gets exclusively stuck on one streaming platform.
They did make it available here https://navalny-film.io/ although without English subtitles from what I see. Hopefully this will change at some point, but feel free to watch if you understand Russian. Otherwise nobody was ever going to blame anyone for watching a ripped copy.
So the poison worked this time
A bit hard to get to German hospital when you are in a Russian prison in the attic circle
Third time’s a charm
