<story><title>Google to close engineering office in Russia</title><url>http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/12/us-russia-internet-google-idUSKBN0JQ03E20141212</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>osipov</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s a very myopic view and here&amp;#x27;s why -- virtually all governments in the world are becoming increasingly authoritarian because of the global economic crisis and the civilian unrest that it provokes. For example, replace Putin in your sentence and you&amp;#x27;ll get &amp;quot;United States is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to it power&amp;quot;. You can support that statement with facts about police in Ferguson, US conflicts with China in Asia Pacific, and of course US crackdown on dissidents like Assange and Snowden. You can also try that exercise by replacing Putin with &amp;quot;Greek government&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Demonizing Putin is what your government wants you to do to avoid seeing the bigger picture. The real question is WHY is Putin cracking down on threat to his power?</text></item><item><author>danmaz74</author><text>Putin is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to his power, whatever the consequences to the Russian economy, and this of course scares foreign companies who work there - even if, with the recent fall of the ruble, Russian talent is even more affordable now.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m afraid (I have friends in Russia) that we&amp;#x27;re going to see more of this.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bad_user</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a Romanian, a country that&amp;#x27;s pretty close to Russia and I am one that suffers for what the Ukrainians are going through with Russia, because I can see how the same thing could happen in Basarabia (Moldova) and there are already signs of that. Russia historically has been occupying territories, getting rid of any political dissent by effectively killing or deporting people, while crushing their national identity. I hate Russia for what they did after the secret pact from Yalta, for the soviet induced hunger that happened after that and for the years of communism we endured.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s been only 24 years since we escaped their control and apparently we&amp;#x27;ve been lucky, but now Putin is destroying any chance of having a peaceful neighborhood. War is effectively at our borders and Putin is to be blamed.&lt;p&gt;So spare me rhetoric about every government or country being the same. No, they are not equal. And I hope the Putin administration will receive what it deserves.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google to close engineering office in Russia</title><url>http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/12/us-russia-internet-google-idUSKBN0JQ03E20141212</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>osipov</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s a very myopic view and here&amp;#x27;s why -- virtually all governments in the world are becoming increasingly authoritarian because of the global economic crisis and the civilian unrest that it provokes. For example, replace Putin in your sentence and you&amp;#x27;ll get &amp;quot;United States is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to it power&amp;quot;. You can support that statement with facts about police in Ferguson, US conflicts with China in Asia Pacific, and of course US crackdown on dissidents like Assange and Snowden. You can also try that exercise by replacing Putin with &amp;quot;Greek government&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Demonizing Putin is what your government wants you to do to avoid seeing the bigger picture. The real question is WHY is Putin cracking down on threat to his power?</text></item><item><author>danmaz74</author><text>Putin is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to his power, whatever the consequences to the Russian economy, and this of course scares foreign companies who work there - even if, with the recent fall of the ruble, Russian talent is even more affordable now.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m afraid (I have friends in Russia) that we&amp;#x27;re going to see more of this.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>okatsu</author><text>I won&amp;#x27;t disagree that demonizing Putin is what the government wants us to do. I remember how the U.S. funded Saddam to use chemical weapons on Iran and then overthrew him &amp;quot;for the sake of the people.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;However, it should also be kept in mind that we&amp;#x27;re still far away from the Russian regime where speaking against the government (releasing classified documents doesn&amp;#x27;t count) or being a homosexual will land you in jail.&lt;p&gt;So yeah, no one&amp;#x27;s perfect, but I&amp;#x27;ll stick to North America for the time being, thanks.</text></comment>