Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
you have to have hope, man. i had no idea things were that bad, it would seem thet russia's feeling the effects of what robert david steele describes as being an endemic and systemic power-corruption, just as much as anywhere.
he does however point out that the "poor" have, collectively, *MORE* buying-power than the 1% elite who keep them oppressed and suppressed. do read what he wrote because i feel that you will see that there is always hope.
l.
It would require the average Joe to be able to see beyond his nose. I had to convince my parents and friends to vote. Half of them didn't care and the other half didn't think their vote matters. The latter is mostly true as elections are almost completely rigged and there is now a popular meme "146%" because that is a total amount of votes if you add all parties together according to a federal TV report.
There was one notable exception. Alexey Navalny was running for a mayor of Moscow and got the 2nd place with ~20% votes. After that, he was quickly arrested and was about to get a prison sentence but managed to avoid it. But his brother didn't though, he's still in prison.