Why not US your Bulk

7

Почему в США нет своего Навального

A high standard of living and the continuity of power is the most important guarantee of political stability and civil peace.

The impression is that in the corridors of the Kremlin is panic a bit: protesters in the capital did not manage to intimidate even more stringent repression. And if people continued to take to the streets even in the height of the summer season, when usually subsides any political activity, what will fall?

The solution is to deliberately withdraw from the election, almost all popular candidates from non-system opposition, it seems, has not led to the results expected by the Kremlin. For the first time after the suppression of the “Bolotnaya movement” he was faced with such a mass movement of protest.

And so began the “outreach” work: Russia’s Investigative Committee posted a video on Youtube, stating: a protest movement organized by the “puppeteers who are away from the epicenter of events.” And “their task is to assign correct roles and financial flows”. I think the hint is clear. Of course, the protests arranged and paid for overseas power, which wants at any price “to destabilize the situation in Russia.”

I came to new York in mid-July, at the very moment when the protest movement in Moscow is gaining strength. And wondered: why in the former Soviet state of workers and peasants seething political passions, and in new York, which Maxim Gorky called “the city of the Yellow Devil”, that is the home of “predatory world imperialism”, in contrast to Moscow, is an amazing silence. There is no hint not only at protests, but even “just” on the pickets.

I think I found the secret to the Olympic calm of the people of new York: here is the highest in the USA hourly. The law forbids employers to pay their employees less than $ 15 per hour. Let’s count: in Moscow from 1 January 2019, the minimum wage is 18781 ruble. This converts to about 285 dollars. Even if roughly take four weeks working forty hours, you get 1.78 per hour — in any case, this is much less than in America. The food in the shops of the American metropolis is not more expensive, than in Moscow, and gasoline in new York at times even cheaper.

Reluctance to go out on the street with placards explained by including a high standard of living. So I see here a simple taxi driver, who in a month earns four thousand dollars, of which one thousand is spent on food and a thousand — for rental housing. The remaining two thousand every month he puts in the Bank. In the year he turns 24 thousand. The money he plans to invest as a down payment in a mortgage and buy a two-storey house with two bedrooms and two bathrooms.

For comparison: in Moscow, the mortgage interest rate is nine percent, and in new York — just two percent. And there is no registration, no internal passport. So for the loan to the Bank present a driver’s license.

The youth, who in Moscow has become the main force of the protest in new York sees no reason to fight with the government, because in the United States for over two centuries, the Republican and Democratic parties regularly replace each other at the helm. And if you don’t like the current leaders, you can wait four or maximum of eight years before their disappearance in the regular elections. The idea that a generation can be born and grow up with the same President, was not close neither to the founding fathers who wrote the Constitution, nor the current Americans, whatever views they may espouse.

But you can not wait for the elections. For example, to protest against the policies of Donald trump is now possible through the opposition to him of the democratic party in Congress. The political culture prevailing in America, implies that there is careful attention will listen to the position of any voter and citizen, even if he wizened old man, though a green youngster.

What is the secret of political stability in the United States? A country where there are still places where in the store you can buy any gun, even an assault rifle. It would seem that thousands of disgruntled residents of the metropolis can create an illegal armed group to storm the White house and to seize power. But for some reason US citizens do not.

In addition, there is no omnipotence of the mafia and the police in droves is not cooperating with the crime. From raider attacks you can fight back in court, whose independence remains one of the main achievements of American democracy. And the news that in the house of a senior police officer found a mountain of cash in an amount comparable to the budget of a small city, perhaps, would have led to such political consequences, which may be compared with the Watergate scandal.

There is no “American Bulk”. Perhaps if such a leader could appear, the wave is not a political protest. Yes, it would be naivety to paint the US and specifically new York city as “a shining city on the hill.” Problems here enough. The first thing that catches the eye interracial differences. Cases where the murder of a black policeman leads to riots, are well known. But the idea that we should go under the batons due to the fact that your candidate is not admitted to the elections, it does not work, and political career it will not do. In connection with the absence of most such problems.

Finally, TV. The current President of Russia for the past 20 years have never participated in a public debate. In the United States since Kennedy participate in the debates obligatory for all who claim the White house. In Russia there is no independent Federal channel, where they could freely speak Navalny, Gudkov, Grigory Yavlinsky and Mitrokhin. In the US there are no national TV, and national TV channels independent from the administration of Donald trump and can freely criticize the first person in the state than with the big enthusiasm in use. For example, the ABC recently discussed this subject: “For the last three years of his presidency Donald trump lied 554 times and gave 873 false promises”.

I repeat again, of course, the United States has its own specific problems. But I can’t put them on a par with the monstrous problem of corruption, suppression of democratic freedoms and the concentration of power in the same hands without any checks and balances.

A high standard of living and the continuity of power is the most important guarantee of political stability. Authoritarian power, slowing the economy and stopping system of social mobility, with their hands creates the conditions for widespread discontent. Alas, have no hope that such a system is able to cure itself.

Aydin Mehdiyev, New York

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