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Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/russia/265689-russia-skewers-us-election-as-undemocratic-the-worst-in-the-world
Russia skewers US election as undemocratic, ‘the worst in the world’
- 11/04/12 06:00 AM ET
The Russian government is lambasting the U.S. presidential race as an undemocratic spectacle amid growing concerns about the country’s own commitment to free and fair elections.
The Foreign Ministry this week accused America of hypocrisy following reports that some U.S. states would turn away international election monitors at the polls.
The U.S. electoral system, Russian elections chief Vladimir Churov declared this week, “is the worst in the world.”
Observers say the attacks against America's election system are largely fueled by domestic politics in Russia.
Voting has become a touchy subject for the Kremlin following the massive demonstrations that pro-democracy activists staged against the legislative elections that were held in December. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the fraud allegations that sparked the turmoil raised “serious concern.”
Further, observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said President Vladimir Putin's election to a third six-year term in March was marred by “serious problems.”
The U.S-Russia relationship “has become a part of the chess game of domestic Russian politics,” said Matthew Rojansky, the deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“It's not surprising that attacking the United States — and trying to diminish the credibility of what is said by Americans and what comes from Washington — is very much now in the interest of the Russian authorities,” Rojansky said.
"It says something about the state of the relationship. There's not a lot of trust right now. We're defaulting to a lot of bad old habits, this kind of tit-for-tat criticism, which was common during the Cold War."
Members of Putin’s government have paid particular attention to the move by Texas and Iowa to reject election monitoring by the OSCE, a 56-member group that the United States has relied on to criticize flawed elections in other countries, including Russia.
This year's Republican-led backlash against the OSCE — a group that has monitored six U.S. elections since 2002 without incident — was quickly seized upon by Russian officials such as Churov, who is widely known in the country as the “magician” for his role in helping Putin and his United Russia party stay in power.
“It is strange why the U.S. authorities, who often accuse other countries of being not democratic enough, prefer not to notice such violation of democracy in their own country,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
Still, Rojansky said, much of the criticism appears to be aimed at silencing critics at home and abroad. Russia has taken steps to silence independent election monitors, which get funding from the United States and other foreign sources.
The attacks are part of a broader backlash against the United States in Russia, according to Rojansky. The Kremlin threw out the U.S. Agency for International Development this fall and announced last month that it was ending the 20-year U.S.-Russia partnership to contain loose nukes.
“It's worse this year because the relationship has become much more overtly political,” he said.
“It's sort of an across-the-board, you America are unwilling to acknowledge the reality that Russia today is different than Russia in 1993 when you first negotiated all these agreements, and basically it is a political thing and it is a power thing: We're back on our feet, and you cannot run these things in the sort of heavy-handed way that you did right after the end of the Cold War.”
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WARNING FROM RAEL: For those who don't use their intelligence at its full capacity, the label "selected by RAEL" on some articles does not mean that I agree with their content or support it. "Selected by RAEL" means that I believe it is important for the people of this planet to know about what people think or do, even when what they think or do is completely stupid and against our philosophy. When I selected articles in the past about stupid Christian fundamentalists in America praying for rain, I am sure no Rael-Science reader was stupid enough to believe that I was supporting praying to change the weather. So, when I select articles which are in favor of drugs, anti-semitic, anti-Jewish, racist, revisionist, or inciting hatred against any group or religion, or any other stupid article, it does not mean that I support them. It just means that it is important for all human beings to know about them. Common sense, which is usually very good among our readers, is good enough to understand that. When, like in the recent articles on drug decriminalization, it is necessary to make it clearer, I add a comment, which in this case was very clear: I support decriminalizing all drugs, as it is stupid to throw depressed and sad people (as only depressed and sad people use drugs) in prison and ruin their life with a criminal record. That does not mean that there is any change to the Message which says clearly that we must not use any drug except for medical purposes. The same applies to the freedom of expression which must be absolute. That does not mean again of course that I agree with anti-Jews, antisemites, racists of any kind or anti-Raelians. But by knowing your enemies or the enemies of your values, you are better equipped to fight them. With love and respect of course, and with the wonderful sentence of the French philosopher Voltaire in mind: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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