Soccer Dad

Eleven years ago

Man vs. computer ends badly:

On May 11, 1997, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov resigns after 19 moves in a game against Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer developed by scientists at IBM. This was the sixth and final game of their match, which Kasparov lost two games to one, with three draws.

Garry Kasparov isn't just one of the great chess players of all time, he is also a brave political activist seeking real democracy for Russia.

According to the Russian Constitution, Medvedev is now in charge. But until there is evidence of his independence and authority, it is safe to assume that Medvedev still needs Putin's permission to use the Kremlin lavatory. The real "smooth transition of power" was moving Putin from the presidency to prime minister.

We can expect a few proclamations and perhaps even token policy changes. Unfortunately, the early signs show that Medvedev's statement about developing civil freedoms and ending "legal nihilism" were only a show for the West. Such displays are needed to offset elections with the results known in advance, lack of media freedom and businessgrowth that only benefits Kremlin loyalists. Otherwise, Putin's gang of oligarchs might lose easy access to billions in looted assets held in the West. So far, though, as Putin learned over the last eight years, there is no such danger. Russia pretends to be a democracy, and the United States and the European Union pretend to believe Russia is a democracy.

That morally repugnant pact is not working so well for those of us fighting for real democracy here. The day before Medvedev took power, several dozen people were arrested simply for being in the general area of a planned rally that had already been canceled. The police had promised that no one would be detained if the rally was called off; apparently they did not receive Medvedev's message about civil freedoms in time.

russia