Here's an unpleasant blast from the past. Vladimir Putin's government faced a protest and decided to take action. So the day before the scheduled protest, the leader of it was sent to a mental hospital. Just like the bad, old days of the Soviet Union.
A Russian opposition activist has been sent to a psychiatric hospital by authorities a day before a planned demonstration.
Artem Basyrov's detention is the latest in a series of incidents suggesting a punitive Soviet-era practice is being revived under president Vladimir Putin.
Mr Basyrov, 20, was ordered to be held at a hospital in the central region of Mari El on November 23, a day before planned demonstrations, said Alexander Averin of the opposition National Bolshevik Party.
The party is part of the Other Russia coalition which organised the so-called Dissenters' Marches across the country this year.
Mr Basyrov ran for the local legislature as an Other Russia candidate.
Police who originally detained him claimed he had assaulted a girl.
A local psychiatric board agreed, deciding the activist suffered from a mental illness and he was committed to the psychiatric hospital three weeks ago.
He was only transferred from an isolation ward and allowed to have visitors on Thursday, said Mikhail Klyuzhev, a National Bolshevik member from the city of Yoshkar-Ola.
The allegations against Mr Basyrov were "idiocy" and were "part of the hysteria" before Russia's parliamentary elections which were held on December 2, Mr Klyuzhev added.
How long do you suppose it will be until the gulag is back in full swing? My guess is that it is already in the works. Soon, 'counting trees' will again be part of the Russian vocabulary. Not long after that the old, bitter Russian joke will start being told: What did the dissident say just before he committed suicide?
Don't shoot, comrade.
When I attended grade school I learned that America was rich in natural resources and had sufficient land to grow food and industrious people so that’s why we succeeded. I still believe that, but Russia has natural resources and ample arable land and I believe many brilliant industrious people.
So what is in their psyche to accept this authoritarianism?
There was a general downward trend in the I.Q.s of Soviet dictators until Gorby, who botched it royally. El’tsin, the well-intended incompetent, blew it because he was usually bombed out of his mind on cheap vodka.
Now comes Tsar Vladimir I. He is smarter than any of the above. He also is just as power-hungry as any of them, plus more nationalistic. Alas, he is politically shrewder, knowing when to persuade, when to buy off, censor, jail, beat up or . . . murder. He is, therefore, likely to be more effective than any of his predecessors. As usual, he is, every day, greeted with gladsome cries by the usual scum in Russia and the West, plus the gas-pipeline cowards in Europe so, friends, we are really in for it this time.
To quote Pete Townshend
There’s something nasty rising in Russia, that’s for sure. But Tsar Vladimir’s efforts will be all for nought, since his kingdom’s disastrous demographics show Mother Russia will be China’s housemaid in about 50 years.
Been away so long I hardly knew the place
Gee it’s good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
I’m back in the U.S.S.R.
You don’t know how lucky you are boy
Back in the U.S.
Back in the U.S.
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia’s always on my mind
[ ...]
Oh, show me around your snow-peaked mountains way down south
Take me to your daddy’s farm
Let me hear your balalaika’s ringing out
Come and keep your comrade warm
I’m back in the U.S.S.R.
Hey you don’t know how lucky you are boys
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Oh let me tell you, honey
Hey, I’m back!
I’m back in the U.S.S.R.
Yes, I’m free!
Yeah, back in the U.S.S.R.
Yeah, Maggie, that is what I should have used for a title. Because they sure are heading there.