[wheelerof4te]

"social movements."

LOL, try harder. NGOs paid by the westerners are a thing, but you sure know that. If these people did not get free money for their actions, they would be silent.

"Do people under authoritarian regimes have any agency?"

"Authoritarian regimes" usually have popular support since a huge majority supports the ruling party.

Otherwise, the country would not be stable and vast sums of western money would not have to be sent there in order to ferment a color revolution.

[cderpz]

>"Authoritarian regimes" usually have popular support since a huge majority supports the ruling party.

This argument makes about as much sense as the following one:

>Otherwise, the country would not be stable and vast sums of western money would not have to be sent there in order to ferment a color revolution.

The defining characteristic of an authoritarian regime as opposed to a democratic one is that it does not derive its power and legitimacy from the people - i.e. popular support. It may be stable and "popular" and still terrible, North Korea comes to mind. But as out of touch as you seem to be, you probably belong to that strange group of people who think NK is actually an anti Western paradise.

[AlbertCory]

There's a simple test of"a huge majority supports the ruling party":

Have a fair election, where both sides are permitted to make their case to the voting public. No candidates or supporters would be imprisoned or legally harassed, before or after the election.

Then have another one a year or two later, since "your vote actually counts" would be a teaching moment for people who aren't used to it.

[wheelerof4te]

"No candidates or supporters would be imprisoned or legally harassed, before or after the election."

You mean, like currently in the "most democratic country" in the world.

So yeah, please do have a fair election. No vote stealing either, and no voting dead.

[thriftwy]

Unfortunately, this is very true. If we look at public opposition to authoritarian regimes, we will see layers upon layers of NGO pets and very few independent figures.

It is so apparent that they actually discredit the idea of opposing authoritarianism. Democracy is a tough sell if you know your local democratic movement is paid for by other countries which do not have your country's well-being, or existence, as a motivation.

So there are a lot of people discontent with lack of options and restrictions to freedom of speech and expression, but they do not have a voice. People who have a voice are universally paid agents of NGOs. They get good money to film expensive produced youtube videos and get cited by world press all the time. There is significant mismatch between two groups, but they get compounded and written off by the majority and the regime.

[thriftwy]

So it turned out just this week that the prominent democratic opposition figure, the guy behind the anti-authoritarian icon Pussy Riot and the anti-war, pacifist often-cited media Mediazona, brags that he is enlisted in Armed Forces of Ukraine.

So he is non-Russian, non-democratic, non-pacifist non-journalist.

He is just a proud Ukrainian fighter all along the way. Great for him. Have we got any Russian opposition? Give me a name, I challenge you.

I also wonder how great it for low-level activists who were supplying Mediazona with information in order to raise awareness of Russian soldier deaths on Ukrainian fronts, that they are now liable to get high treason charges for offloading that data directly in hands of an enlisted AFU fighter.

[wheelerof4te]

"There is significant mismatch between two groups, but they get compounded and written off by the majority and the regime."

That is by nature. You can't make every person in a country happy. There are millions of homeless people, discontent people, depressed people all around the West. These people have been mercilessly oppressed by the cruel practices of neo-liberalism and profit-oriented capitalism. Imagine what world-wide sanctions and isolation would do to them.

Are there any NGOs that promote their plight? Of course not, since other countries either can't pay or are not interested in them. In the best case, there is a few under-paid organizations that are (cleverly) not getting the media attention.