I can’t imagine a worse insult to a dictator trying to preserve the illusion of free elections in his country than to congratulate him on his landslide victory before the election is even over.
Well done
They don’t give a shit. The elections are for ambitious people in Russia to think “if I’m the next Navalny, I can beat him!”. This illusion stops those ambitious people from an actual revolution and is a huge part of a dictatorship.
You’re right that they don’t give a fuck, but I don’t think the reasoning really runs that deep.
If you have an election, no matter how corrupt or coerced, then any assertion that you’re an autocratic dictator is an “opinion” requiring evidence to support it.
This way, it says democracy on the tin, so everyone will behave as though it is that, despite no one buying it.
I was ready to be snarky, then I realised he said it before the results were known.
Well played sir.
A Luhansk resident voting (Polaris images)
Looks like a totally fair election; normal countries always make their citizens vote at gunpoint.
Jesus fuck this is on par with that talk show skit in v for vendetta with the audience clapping with shotguns to their heads. And that was an over-the-top joke.
V for vendetta is typical “English come up with dystopian fantasy, Americans try and make it a reality” fare, like 1984.
Britain is also pretty far on the police state track, if you ask me. It makes sense that these novels are from there. How they are criminalising public protest, journalism (hi Assange!), etc. They don’t realize that “see it, say it, sorted” is creepy as hell like it was lifted straight from 1984
Oh yeah, and they’ve been at it for ages. Orwell and the others didn’t get his inspiration out of thin air.
I remember in the nineties they were calling centralized CCTV surveillance “the fifth utility”, after electricity, water, gas and telephone.
The Internet was already widely in use, but British MPs thought CCTV was more important I guess ;)
Internet was provided by telephone infrastructure, so it got lumped in with that.
I just wish people would recognize “Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences” is one of the most fascist things ever said.
Like, there are so many better ways to phrase the underlying thought that don’t sound like you’re about to sentence someone to the mines for insulting the state.
“Freedom of speech isn’t a guaranteed platform”
“Freedom of speech only applies to governmental censorship”
“Freedom of speech applies to more people than just you, chucklefuck”
Etc etc
I’m curious as to what you think about the actual meaning of those sentences, then. Do you think that there ought to be protection against consequences, regardless of what one says? Should there be any exceptions at all? What is the domain of applicability? Certain types of expression, certain types of topics, intended audience, etc?
Edit: oh and what about freedom from? Is there any situation in which a person has a right to shut someone down from “expressing themselves” to them without their consent?
That one is getting close to reality too. America fell. England a crazy over the top surveillance state.
Did we watch the same movie? Or read the same comic? From its wiki:
“V for Vendetta is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd (with additional art by Tony Weare). Initially published between 1982 and 1985 in black and white as an ongoing serial in the British anthology Warrior, its serialization was completed in 1988–89 in a ten-issue colour limited series published by DC Comics in the United States.”
It was british in the comic…
Plot summary of movie?
“Following world war, London is a police state occupied by a fascist government, and a vigilante known only as V (Hugo Weaving) uses terrorist tactics to fight the oppressors of the world in which he now lives. …”
British in the movie.
Now, to be fair, the screenplay was written by 2 Americans who loved the comic and it was directed by an Australian. Your downvotes are coming from you jumping onto the “amerikkka bad” train without any real connection here.
Did you actually read the guy’s comment though?
You misunderstood my comment.
Which is very embarrassing for you considering how combative you are about it.
Also, I can’t downvote. My instance doesn’t allow it.
Before i start flipping chairs, whats the source on this image?
Not where I found it, but it has a snopes page: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/voting-in-russias-2024-election/
And good for you for being critical. Misinformation is everywhere, don’t believe what you see on the internet
Grazie internet person!
Austria, March 1938.
Warms my heart how well Russia protects and looks after her new citizens during the act of voting.
Just look at this pic: If she were to make an error with her vote, those officials can point it out and correct her on time, before the ballot disappears in the ballot box. And if she happens to be an enemy of the state, she can be dealt with immediately before she has a chance of attacking the Russian democracy.
Shows you that Putin really does care in a way western leaders don’t.
How does the voting process work there? That pic looks like it’s just signing that you voted
The voting process is that all other serious contenders are thrown in prison and/or killed, international observers aren’t safe to verify the result, protests are forbidden, armed soldiers go door to door, and nobody trusts the secrecy of the vote
Have you noticed there’s an armed soldier inside the voting station?
Yes I haven’t seen the very visible soldier
Circlejerk so powerful asking a question is seen as being fucking blind now apparently
Ask stupid question, get stupid answer 🤷♂️
Ballot secrecy only works if everyone is convinced their votes are secret and they won’t be punished for a “wrong” vote. It doesn’t matter if they can’t or won’t punish you, what matters is that people are afraid to cast an honest vote. Thus the vote is compromised, regardless of the mechanics of elections in a dictatorship.
It’s all a sham, it doesn’t make one iota of difference what’s on that piece of paper in a transparent box. That soldier is what this whole scene is about. That’s not a circlejerk, it’s being able to distinguish important from unimportant. You’re seeing straight up voter intimidation and your response is “I wonder if this is the actual ballot or an attendance sheet” lol
there’s a box in background, and they did actually go house to house irrc.
Not doubting that
Just wondering how secret the actual ballot is
In some countries you can put a soldier there and they wouldn’t be able to tell who you voted for
I see in the box it seems to be just a folded A4 sheet and you can tell most of them
I heard he’s projected to get 110% of the vote this time.
Putin will order the murder of every firstborn for such a humiliating result.
Who said belgium/eu had no balls haha. If he really said that, im surprised by charles michel haha
Puttin clearly the best politician, Winning before even starting and not even campaigning! Big wow! Incredible job! /s
Oh the utter SHADE! Or as they say in Russian, Оттенок.
Love those lowercase capital "T"s
They are Ts, in this case the Cyrillic letter is exactly the same as the Latin letter
More lowercase looks like uppercase fun:
-
М м
-
В в (this letter would be v in Latin)
-
Н н (n in Latin)
Also, obligatory PSA: fuck Putler and fuck his dumb fucking war.
btw, ukrainian also has the funny ї (yi) letter (which looks exactly like the latin/cyrillic i but has two dots)
(i think rusyn language has it too)
-
Wait until you see them in cursive…
That’s just normal Cyrillic.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The European Council president congratulated Vladimir Putin on his big win in the Russian presidential election — just as three days of voting began Friday.
“Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” blasted Michel, who is more renowned for diplomatic faux pas than social media snark.
Russians headed to the polls Friday for the first day of voting in a rigged election that Putin is almost certain to win, granting him another six years in power.
The Russian president, who spent years cracking down on any form of dissent against his rule, is expected to face off against three candidates who have voluntarily abstained from criticizing him.
The only two significant anti-war opposition candidates, Ekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin, have been disqualified.
Putin was first elected as Russian president in 2000 and — other than a break when he took on the role of prime minister between 2008 and 2012 — has held the top job ever since.
The original article contains 215 words, the summary contains 162 words. Saved 25%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Russia election: Arrests for vandalism as ballot boxes targeted in Putin vote
Incidents involved green dye being poured into ballot boxes, the boxes being set alight and fireworks being set off inside polling stations, state media reported.
[…]
BBC Verify has so far verified footage of six incidents across Russia, including a video showing a woman throwing a petrol bomb near a St Petersburg polling station.
Other authenticated videos showed paint being poured into ballot boxes at various polling stations. In one, a woman could be seen pouring bright green liquid into a box in Moscow. Another showed a fire breaking out at a voting booth.
Russia has also enforced the vote in occupied areas of Ukraine - in the small town of Skadovsk, Russian-appointed officials said an improvised device exploded in a rubbish bin in front of a polling station, but no one was hurt.
