I thought this happened a week ago when they suspended the Candidates chess tournament.
Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country
11–20 of 83 posts
Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazing, in the same paragraph, acquiescence of power to a foreign state and a plea to end democracy.
"Democracy"? Is that what we're talking about? Read the transcript: "We're gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, and we're gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, we could have -- and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way. That's not the way it was done. But they co…
I'm not, but do you have some concrete plan for when the polls should have been rescheduled to? A democratic country can't indefinitely postpone elections, no matter what the costs of holding them are.
Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country
#13Wow I wish our executive branch actually did take orders from Russia, per the fantasy we all enjoyed for three years. They're certainly taking the situation more seriously than we are. After several states held disastrous primary elections over the last two weeks, Wisconsin is set to hold another one this week!
So, you wish America was ruled by a Chekist. I would do some research into Felix Dzerzhinsky. It might change your mind on this idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Dzerzhinsky
Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country
#14Lots of countries have. I was on one of the last flights to transit through Taiwan. Here in the UK, the government have been talking about a program to get brits back from Australia because many of the places you have to stop and refuel are closed even to transiting passengers. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-travel-re... https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/australia/return-to...
Weirdly enough, I had a quick look at Heathrow arrivals and departures, and there's still loads of flights leaving every 10 minutes, to all kinds of destinations. Multiple flights per day to Rome - I guess if you absolutely, positively have to be in Italy right now! In comparison, my local airport in North of England had a single flight the entire day.
Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Democracy"? Is that what we're talking about? Read the transcript: "We're gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, and we're gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, we could have -- and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way. That's not the way it was done. But they co…
I'm not, but do you have some concrete plan for when the polls should have been rescheduled to? A democratic country can't indefinitely postpone elections, no matter what the costs of holding them are.
Democracy and Democratic governments are two different things. The USA is a democracy. China, North Korea, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are Democratic governments.
Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country
#16I suspect this is to deter Russians from coming home for the Orthodox Easter which is way more important than in the West.
I am a Russian living abroad. I know literally no one coming back to Russia for Easter. It's the first time I even heard of this idea. Summer or New Year are the times when Russians are more likely to go to visit their relatives and friends.
Do you have any idea why that is? Length of travel? Cost of travel? I'm a Pole living abroad and every year I try to go to visit my family for Easter, it seems like a pretty normal thing to do.
Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazing, in the same paragraph, acquiescence of power to a foreign state and a plea to end democracy.
"Democracy"? Is that what we're talking about? Read the transcript: "We're gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, and we're gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, we could have -- and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way. That's not the way it was done. But they co…
I don’t think that’s the part sambull had a problem with
Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country
#18Wow I wish our executive branch actually did take orders from Russia, per the fantasy we all enjoyed for three years. They're certainly taking the situation more seriously than we are. After several states held disastrous primary elections over the last two weeks, Wisconsin is set to hold another one this week!
Amazing, in the same paragraph, acquiescence of power to a foreign state and a plea to end democracy.
You're really taking an overly broad and negative reading here. The commenter you replied to obviously referred to the current U.S. administration when wishing for them to take orders from Russia. The joke being that the alleged conspiracy would have a favorable outcome compared to the bumbling response we observe. The comment doesn't suggest (at least to me) that this should be a general policy.
Similarly, calling conventions disastrous during the current pandemic is well in line of discourse about limiting the spread. Interpreting this as "a plea to end democracy" overinterprets things much. Is a democracy really a democracy if it is so fragile it could cease to exist when a few conventions cannot be held?
Please show a bit of good will when reading others' comments.
Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am a Russian living abroad. I know literally no one coming back to Russia for Easter. It's the first time I even heard of this idea. Summer or New Year are the times when Russians are more likely to go to visit their relatives and friends.
Do you have any idea why that is? Length of travel? Cost of travel? I'm a Pole living abroad and every year I try to go to visit my family for Easter, it seems like a pretty normal thing to do.
Thank you for sharing that! It's amazing that this tradition exists in Poland. Do Poles come to see family for New Year / Christmas?
Oh, and by the way: Russia has state holidays from Jan 1st till Jan 10th (+/-, every year is slightly different), which makes it a lot easier to meet everyone.
Easter does not have any state recognition in Russia, so everyone would be quite busy with their regular errands, I guess.
Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Democracy"? Is that what we're talking about? Read the transcript: "We're gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, and we're gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, we could have -- and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way. That's not the way it was done. But they co…
I'm not, but do you have some concrete plan for when the polls should have been rescheduled to? A democratic country can't indefinitely postpone elections, no matter what the costs of holding them are.
Let's start with two months. It seems quite possible that we'll have a better idea what's going on by June. A number of important events that affect my community have been postponed until at least then. In June, we can ask the public health experts whether we can start ramping back up with big public events, including elections.
I wish all the democracy superfans would show some consistency and demand all-paper-ballot elections, like most democratic polities in history and in the present. The closed-source electronic voting box is certainly a bigger threat to democracy than several months of primary delay. When other nations have exit poll discrepancies of over 4%, the UN calls it an indicator of probable vote fraud. Our primaries regularly feature such discrepancies. [0]
[0] https://www.nationofchange.org/2020/03/13/is-the-dnc-cheatin...