Robert Amsterdam

What an amazingly valuable service you are providing! Speaking in Russian with subtitles! Fantastic!

It's so sad that a great Russian patriot like this is relegated to speaking on YouTubes, and but for that would be unheard of, while a a great Russian traitor like Mr. Putin scoffs up Russia's MSM like a hog at the trough.

It should be the other way around! And if it were, who knows what great things Russia might accomplish!

What - that is "great - has Russia ever accomplished by gearing its policies to the accolades of Western observers? Ms Alexeeva is a concientious woman of humane values (though her policies would continue the unbridled rapacity of the 1990's), but she and others like her have and will never have more than an insignficant influence on Russian affairs. Those associated with Russia's new freedoms are in low single digits in public approval. Those who seek at least a partial return to the past are all the go. It is if Cindy Sheehan or Ramsey Clark or Barbara Streisand decided to run for the American presidency. Their candidature would be a joke, and for good reason. They, like your "dissident" heroes, are shrill but lonely voices which have completely misread the public mood, and their own roles within it.

Wow, Louis, don't hold your tongue - tell us how you really feel about this one...

Seems like a useless exercise to imagine the policies of non-politicians...