Recently, a Russian opposition figure, Boris Nemtsov, was killed in the heart of Moscow near the Kremlin. While we still don't know who exactly killed him or who ordered his killings, there is no question that Russia has plenty of opposition to the current regime. These opposition figures frequently criticize the Kremlin's position on virtually everything, and quite vocally. Zhirinovsky often makes speeches denouncing many things the Russian government is doing in very colorful terms. Russia, although it has a dominant party in United Russia ("Edinaya Rossiya), has several other parties, including the Communist party and LDPR with a sizeable percentage of voters.
But, if we look at the United States, that supports oppositions in Russia and Ukraine, a question arises - does the United States itself really have an opposition or an opposition party? A frequently, the things US officially criticizes are the thing it has problems with ITSELF.
US has just two official parties - Democrats and Republicans, which is an oligopoly - a thing very frequently present in the US business markets - even though it's system is based on the principles of free enterprise and free competition, in reality, large corporations dominate the US market with little opposition, because the LAWS are written to favor them.
So, the US political system, consisting of Democrats and Republicans, is not really two parties opposing each other, rather - they are (emphasis added) pretending to oppose each other. Which one of these parties was:
1) Against the war in Iraq
2) For free basic healthcare
3) Free or subsidized basic college education
4) Fighitng for changes in the brutal and oppresive police force that regularly kills innocent people
Answer is, neither party campaigned for any opposing view points on any of those issues. And since we don't have any other parties with any significant traction, we can conclude that the US, for all practical purposes,
does NOT have an opposition.
The system is somewhat similar to the Communist Party in China, however, the difference is that the US system is setup to make it look like there are two opposing parties, to make it look like people have a choice. Furthermore, does the US have any opposition politicians with any significant traction? Again, the answer is no. All politicians within a grasp of the next presidency all have similar views on all major issues - and no solutions to any major American problems.
The problem is exacerbated with the fact that an average American is not interested in politics - common US culture idolizes musicians and actors and the average person follows entertainment news much more than political views - in contrast to Europe, where people are quite interested in politics. This creates a situation where the country, largely indifferent and obvlivious, is run by a small group of politicians with virtually no real opposition.
Serge Bronstein
March 9, 2015
