Putin creates Putin Youth

Le Kremlin encourage Nachi, le mouvement patriotique des "jeunesses poutiniennes"

Russia is becoming worse by the day. Putin has created the Nachi group, his version of College Republicans, to drum up youth support for his reelection bid in 2008. (Who knows if you can trust the results of a Russian election?) What is interesting about this is that these kids, ages 17-23, are too young to really remember life in the USSR, and what life they did live in it was after Glasnost and Perestroika. I wonder if they have a democratic streak in them or if the culture of Russian dictatorship has been instilled in them from birth. The article says there is a sense of nostalgia for empire surrounding the group, probably because things in Russia are pretty bad right now. People look back on better times; it's human nature. It's easier to think about the past because you know it. You can't know the future, and I suppose the uncertainty is what causes people to join groups like Nachi and Bush Youth, as they think a return to the past will fix all of their problems.

The gops are definitely stuck in the past. That's why their conversations go like this:

Gop 1: Good Reagan morning!
Gop 2: Good Reagan morning to you, too. I am going for a Reagan cup of family coffee. Do you Reagan want any?
Gop 1: No, thank you. Reagan family coffee makes me moonbat dizzy.
Gop 2: I Reagan know. Sometimes I Reagan drink two Reagan moral values family cups of Reagan family coffee, and I get moonbat dizzy. Reagan.
Gop 1: God bless Reagan America! Support the Reagan troops! Family moral values I hate gays Reagan Reagan.
Gop 2: See you Reagan later, too. Reagan.

We shouldn't continue to suck up to Putin when it comes to our foreign policy, and we definitely need to keep an eye on his campaign. The people of Russia (and the surrounding areas) have suffered enough. We need to think about the future and learn from the past, not live in it.