Do you think when people as powerful as the U.S. President and all the cable networks smear protesters, do you think the protesters have an equal platform/power to dispute this and therefore it's a debate?
My point is not to argue that Russia isn't authoritarian but that every country seeks to delegitimize those who disagree with its powerful. That does not mean that there aren't a lot of people who may disagree incl for example Snowden.
> when people as powerful as the U.S. President and all the cable networks smear protesters, do you think the protesters have an equal platform/power to dispute this and therefore it's a debate?
Yes. I'm in New York. Israel/Palestine is enthusiastically debated in public spaces.
And Presidents smear people and causes all the time. The fact that they're complaining about them and not ordering arrests is the salient difference. For a foreign policy issue, the war in Gaza has received a lot of attention, especially considering it's an election year.
> my point is not to argue that Russia isn't authoritarian but that every country seeks to legitimize those who disagree with its powerful
This is the essence of power. The point is how probable it is that the power succeeds. There is no free speech in Russia. Falsely conflating Snowden's situation with that of the Gaza protesters doesn't hold.
Thousands of Gaza War protesters have been arrested [1]. There were also widespread protests in Russia over Ukraine [2], also shut down with a similarly practiced competence. The entire world is becoming very unfree. People realize this easily enough when looking outside, but when the same things happen internally, people often just don't really recognize it in the same way, probably because of having a comically twisted view of how authoritarianism plays out in practice. With all due respect, I would say that you believing there were no large demonstrations within Russia as being an example of this perspective.
> Thousands of Gaza War protesters have been arrested
True, but by local authorities. And in most cases charges were dropped. The total number detained is small, and in most cases I've personally seen, at least in New York, credibly tied to a destructive act that had nothing to do with the protest.
> probably because of having a comically twisted view of how authoritarianism plays out in practice
Absolutely agree. To a sad degree, the current seat of authoritarian politics in America has shifted to Silicon Valley.
> you believing there were no large demonstrations within Russia as being an example of this perspective
I should have clarified without reprisals, but you are correct--the St. Petersburg protests weren't well covered by the international press.
The American government is the longest continually existing "regime" in the world. Unlike it, other governments do not conduct (serious) attempts to overthrow it and so it has the most secure institutions. Therefore it can afford to absorb more disagreement with it than other, much shorter-lived regimes can.
This is why there can be a 'debate'.
But as soon as any such debate threatens to actually change something, cops are deployed to beat people up, protesters are arrested and harassed and of course they are constantly smeared in the media.
That is the real difference as far as I can see it.
Don't get me wrong, I am part of the Western world and I'd like it to be true what you say, but why do things like this[1] happen then?
> The American government is the longest continually existing "regime" in the world
I'm fairly sure the regime in the UK has lasted longer, technically. You could say that the laws that enabled the current system came into place in 1707 with the Acts of Union, although the modern interpretation took time to come into effect. You could also argue that the supremacy of parliament and thus the beginning of the current regime started in 1688.
The problem with continuous is that things do change over time, and the American system has also evolved since it was conceived.
That's arguing technicalities, and missing the larger point.
Whatever "changes" happen within the US (or the UK) system do not fundamentally uproot the civil servants or the permanent bureaucracy in the West, thus the insinuations remain stable.
Certainly more so than anywhere else in the world. Any changes are minuscule in the grand scheme of things.
Do you think when people as powerful as the U.S. President and all the cable networks smear protesters, do you think the protesters have an equal platform/power to dispute this and therefore it's a debate?
My point is not to argue that Russia isn't authoritarian but that every country seeks to delegitimize those who disagree with its powerful. That does not mean that there aren't a lot of people who may disagree incl for example Snowden.