Today's Russia has very much changed from the USSR. Now USA has becoming more like the USSR and Russia and China are more open and not in the decline like USA.
George Carlin criticized USA, not Russia. I have lived in Russia and you don't know what you are talking about. There are many great artist in Russia , USA didn't hear about them because USA banned everything about Russia for the last 100 years.

@Castlepaloma I know that Vlad the Invader is a war criminal. I know he had Alexy Navalny and many others murdered. I know that Putin is one of the richest people in the world. How did he do that on a civil servant's salary? I know that the average Russian is poorer than the average Indian. You lived in Russia? Nice. So did Lee Harvey Oswald.

@Flyingsaucesir So are many of your US presidents war criminals.
In terms of what you know it seems that you are limited to US propaganda & have enjoined in the western folies en masse. If you are referring to sub continent India Indians they always have been poor whether through British colonialism or the indigenous Maharaj who preceded the English. If you are talking about your own American fnp before the coming of white settlers they led very rich lives incomparable to what they now have to endure with a large proportion of the rest of American citizens. Poverty is not necessarily measured by a lack of money or other tangible assets. You probably have many assets but your share of national debt is now more than $93500 for each one of you. I suspect that your average personal debt isn't far behind as you seem to be a society that lives on credit.

@Flyingsaucesir & how many has the USA had murdered inside & outside of its borders?
Wake up to yourself!

@FrayedBear Indians = people of India.
Native Americans or First Peoples = descendants of people who migrated into North America from east Asia long before Europeans reached this hemisphere.

You seem oblivious to the fact that we Americans are well aware of the USA's deficiencies, foibles, problems, and historical wrongs. And yet we love our country, and continue striving to improve it. We don't just throw up our hands in disgust (or hopelessly shrug and keep our heads down, as in Russia). Why not? Because there there are certain fundamental conditions that give us Americans hope. Namely, rule of law, freedom of speech, voting rights, etc., etc. These elements are absent in Russia, and that's why Russians, by and large, just hopelessly accept the rank corruption of their leadership. Not all do. Several hundred thousand men of military age have recently fled Russia in order to avoid being tossed into Putin's Ukraine meat grinder. And there are heroes like Alexy Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza and the young women of Pussy Riot, who selflessly put their bodies on the line to fight the corrupt Russian oligarchy.

Of course, in addition to the Russians who are heroes or who keep their heads down, there are those who have sold their souls to the corrupt machine, who work for it and promote its interests at home and abroad. That's where you fit in, Frayed Russian Bear.

@Flyingsaucesir you are demented. America & Americans have no respect for law either your own or those of other countries around the world even when those countries pronounce common laws applicable to all. America has murdered more people around the world in the name of upholding law & order aka we don't like your non fascist politics or non Christian religion than any other nation including the great deaths caused by famines & political cleansing attributed to Stalin & Mao.
You talk of "We don't just throw up our hands in disgust (or hopelessly shrug and keep our heads down)" & yet you have been accepting the propaganda & lies espoused by your governments unquestioningly all your lives. Try having a look at some of the ratings imperfectly developed for measuring citizens standards of satisfaction & living & see how lowly you rate. You have the highest prison population in the world & when you consider how few people there are in your citizenry the level of incarceration is unbelievable for people professing to be so sdvanced compared to everyone else. Your dependency on drugs equally shows how good your lives are.
When you have rectified these & many more besides you will be in a position to brag, not before. The Russian people you forget threw off the shackles of the tyranny of the tsars, they have been soundly thrashing your proxy army of Ukrainian & foreign mercenaries for the last two years and in the meantime have helped create, through BRICS, the best opposition to your appalling hegemony & corruption of world prosperity caused by your weaponising the American dollar, sanctions and dodgy one sided trade deals or simple theft & pillage of other's assets.
In the vernacular "on yer bike Mike!"

@FrayedBear Who is bragging? As I said, I am well aware of the USA's shortcomings. For instance, I do consider George W Bush to be a war criminal. But in stark contrast to today's Russia, I am free to openly write and speak my opinion without fear of retribution from the government. I can shout it from the rooftops and not worry that I will be jailed or killed by government thugs. Try telling the truth about Vladimir Putin in Russia and you're likely to wake up dead.

@Flyingsaucesir "Try telling the truth about Vladimir Putin in Russia and you're likely to wake up dead." - you have personal experience do you?

@FrayedBear "Kara-Murza had already survived two poisonings — first in 2015 and then again in 2017. He was then arrested in 2022 and tried for treason last year after denouncing Putin's war on Ukraine."

[cbsnews.com]

@Flyingsaucesir & of course the recent assassinations of various Arab freedom fighters in the Middle East was condoned if not orchestrated by the USA.
The murders of 40k - 300k Palestinians using US supplied weapons & ammunition over the last 11 months of genocide in Gaza cannot be attributed to your country can it?
And let's not forget the many extraordinary renditions of people from around the world to be tortured by US proxies & or incarcerated illegally in Guantanamo Bay prison to be subjected to more torture.

@FrayedBear One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

The Palestinians started this latest round of unpleasantness with a massacre of over 1200 Israelis. On the day, there was much celebration in Gaza. I wonder if they are having second thoughts yet.

Keep in mind that Hamas has been in the driver's seat since the git-go. They could stop the killing at any time. Instead, they choose to fight from behind their wives and children.

Well, to be fair, the wives had those children specifically to be soldiers, or mothers of soldiers. Did they know their kids might serve as human shields before their little arms could even carry a rifle? Sure, they knew. Down deep they knew. But they had those kids anyway, because that's how much they hate the Israelis.

It's an attitude that, to people who have lived in relative peace all their lives, is totally foreign and inexplicable. The idea that one might have children just to throw them into a multi-generational feud is almost too preposterous, too monstrous to contemplate.

The plan's success is riding on the developed world's misunderstanding of the situation, of the world seeing those children as just children and not the little soldiers their parents brought them forth to be.

And there's no denying that the plan is, to some extent, working. Most people in the developed world really can't conceive of using their own kids as human shields. The Palestinians see us as soft, squeamish, and irresolute. And they are, to some extent, correct in that assessment of us.

Of course, none of this would be possible without some whacky religious beliefs. The dead are not merely dead; they're martyrs who have gone to a better place. That's the twisted thinking that allows people to have kids knowing that they will be first human shields, and if they survive long enough to hold a gun, soldiers in a war with no end in sight.

Does the Koran say that Israel has no right to exist? No. And it also doesn't say that a cartoonist who draws a picture of the "prophet" Mohammed should have his or her head blown off. Or that an author who depicts that "prophet" in a novel should be hounded for life and stabbed in the eye.

So having kids to be soldiers or human shields is not the only weird idea bouncing around in the heads of Muslim extremists. They are even at odds with the fundamental principle of freedom of speech.

But so is your boss, Vladimir Putin! In today's Russia, you can't even hold up a blank piece of paper in public without being hustled off to a jail cell. Is Putin a religious man? No. But religion isn't the only thing that can lead people to act monstrously, to be monsters. Money and power are great motivators too. And so, Frayed Russian Bear, we have come full circle!

@Flyingsaucesir I will be interested to see your response after the missiles start landing in your country & some civilians contracted to work in the military targets are killed.

By the way do you know what happens if one of the hypersonic missiles hits one of your nuclear missile silos? I hope that they are all well removed from civilian populations.

@Flyingsaucesir and how will you react if you & your Middle East military base aka israel are expelled from the UN?

Web browser search or youtube app links: youtu.be/aK8i5Hinpp8?si=fHnQQrfLYt7rxqJh

@FrayedBear I understand that you are frustrated, but engaging in ad hominem attacks and issuing thinly-veiled threats will not help your case. It only shows that you are aware that you are defeated, but unable to admit it.
(Sound of dusting off hands)

@Flyingsaucesir btw what's this bit of blank paper being held up in Russia that causes arrest all about? I've never heard of it.

@FrayedBear

[newsweek.com]

[hrw.org]

[the-independent.com]

@Flyingsaucesir thank you for that information.

Now let me ask what were the actual sentences imposed by the courts? How did they compare to the years of incarceration & plot by the CIA to assassinate the media publisher, Julian Assange?

@Flyingsaucesir I make no threats simply ooint out the bleeding obvious. As for ad hominem you are the only one making those attacks - "And so, Frayed Russian Bear" is an ad hominem attack on me.

@FrayedBear I've never seen anyone with a bigger hard-on for Vlad the Invader. I simply point out the obvious, Frayed Russian Bear.

As for Assange, he was spectacularly reckless, and criminally stupid. He endangered many lives and was directly responsible for the deaths of some good people. I'd say he got off easy. (If the CIA wanted him dead, he would be.)

@Flyingsaucesir & the proof of his having caused death to Americans undertaking illegal activities in foreign countries is where?

So you admit the CIA is not under control.