From age and ID restrictions on the Internet, to charging rappers with “terrorism,” the U.K. is demolishing the most basic civil liberties. If we let them, U.S. leaders may be close behind.
From age and ID restrictions on the Internet, to charging rappers with “terrorism,” the U.K. is demolishing the most basic civil liberties. If we let them, U.S. leaders may be close behind.
You’re shifting way too much blame on Russia. Our democracies are failing by themselves, because of complacent politicians who care more about their career and being elected than doing good for their countries. Politicians who learned they don’t have to apply their promises and everything will turn out fine. Voters got pissed and fell for far right lies and propaganda.
It turned into a roaring fire by itself. Putin just made sure the fire doors don’t shut.
Well, it is one big process.
Hard to trace the power which allowed for all those slow processes of subversion to happen, but a lot of it stems ultimately from the USSR’s breakup and those who managed to make profit on it.
Western countries’ MIC’s which no more had to prepare for real war, so same big funding, but less accountability. Western politicians making profit on reducing their militaries - it’s a profitable process of selling properties and scrapping tech and such. Western advisors in ex-USSR helping their new mafia elites. Western businesses who first managed to secure some agreements to do business in ex-USSR.
Then - the tech sector, via plenty of qualified labor from ex-USSR moving to USA and other western countries. Cheap fossil fuels sold by Russia to EU countries, which became a major factor in their economies in the 90s and 00s.
Politicians in this were very notably not complacent, just looking out for themselves and noticing opportunities for themselves.
Also a lot happened just due to technical progress and lack of macro-level competition. Soviet system notably had deadlocks because interested parties couldn’t agree to one countrywide system. Suppose USSR somehow managed to survive till now, with its collegial and totalitarian-bureaucratic, but not mafia-style, government. Then total surveillance being introduced in the West now and long ago in China wouldn’t be successfully implemented in the USSR, for the similar reasons EU countries want to have their own surveillance, but not US surveillance over their citizens. In USSR it would be between ministries and factions not willing to be controlled by others. So in USSR there’d likely be some status quo.
I mean, it’s purely a hypothesis, it already imploded and there’s nothing more to say about this. Just - such things as now would sometimes happen during the Cold War too, but having a big totalitarian state as a counterweight helped a lot. Like an example of what will happen if this is allowed, and like an alternative (if we are going to have totalitarianism, then let’s at least have the red workers-and-peasants kind), and like a real threat in case of weakening of western nations.
So one can imagine that USSR’s breakup did lead in many ways to what we have now. At the same time had it not happened, then maybe on my side of the screen everything would already be surveilled (or maybe it is).