Candidates Who Don’t Give a Damn About You
Text version
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Hi, this is Navalny, and here is one more reason
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for you not to take part in the disgraceful
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farce called Putin's re-election
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and instead to join the voters' strike
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using a specific recent example.
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This past Sunday, we organized
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a nationwide protest action
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in support of the strike. Thank you very much
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to everyone who took part.
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For a month, we prepared, printed, and
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distributed leaflets. They were confiscated from us,
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our campaign offices were searched, and we kept going. Our
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equipment was taken away, and we kept going.
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Our activists were arrested, and we
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kept going.
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[music]
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Our lawyers were handling hundreds of cases at once.
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We filed applications all across the country. We
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prepared stages and backdrops for
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speakers. We raised money. We
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notified everyone online. I recorded
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80 videos appealing to residents of different
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cities.
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Hi, this is Navalny, and if you live in
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Ulyanovsk,
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Ufa, Cheboksary, Arkhangelsk, Novgorod, or
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Vologda, or Voronezh,
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Hi, this is Navalny, and if you live in
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Magadan, then it is specifically to you that I am making this
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appeal to take part. It's honestly so
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absurd it's laughable.
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It sounds ridiculous: stand in the town square and post it online.
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In Magadan, we were livestreaming and did not
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stop it
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even when the door to that very studio
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was being sawed open. That is, we were persuading you, fighting
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for your votes, for your opinion, for your
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participation. That is exactly why our action
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succeeded. It took place in 118 cities. In some places
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only a few people came out,
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in others a great many did, especially for an
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unauthorized protest. But the main thing is that everyone
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once again saw that our shared
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political network is alive. In every city
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in Russia there are real people who, for the sake of
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a common idea, get up in the morning, get dressed,
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take a placard in their hands, and go out into -20°C weather
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to express their attitude toward
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what is happening. And for every such
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person, we fight every day. I was not allowed onto the
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ballot, but we still, every
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single day, fight for you. That is how
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politics should work. Now let's look
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at the rest of the so-called electoral
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campaign, if it can even be called that.
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Nothing.
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The election was officially announced one and a half
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months ago, and only one and a half months
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remain until voting day. Have you even
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noticed anyone fighting for your
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vote?
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Has anyone been campaigning to you, I don't know, inviting you
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to a rally, asking you to sign, asking
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you to donate money, or to distribute leaflets?
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Is anyone besides me bombarding you with
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appeals? Well, Putin is obvious: he simply, 24
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hours a day, brainwashes everyone through
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television.
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As for the rest, the truth is very simple,
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and impossible to deny:
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they do not care about you at all.
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They do not care about you or your votes. No one
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is going to campaign to you or fight
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for your votes in this spectacle called
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an election.
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You are not participating in it at all. Because really, it is
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a fact: just in the course of organizing the January 28 protests,
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we did more work than all
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the other candidates combined did over the course of their entire
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campaigns. Even Putin
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is not really campaigning much.
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He has one task: to drag you to the
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polls,
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where he is guaranteed to get his
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70 percent, because you cannot get less
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if none of your
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competitors is actually competing with you. It's like
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a running track: a person may
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be running slowly, but he is still
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beating his rivals if they are simply
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standing at the starting line smoking after taking
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money from him. And then they will announce to all of us:
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the winner ran 125 times faster. What an
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outstanding athlete.
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So here is my question to you: do you want to
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encourage this? Do you like candidates
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appointed to serve as backup dancers? Do you like
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an electoral system in which
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voters play no role at all
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except showing up at the polling station, that is, simply as part of
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the decor, like furniture?
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Again, it is not even about the fact that I was not
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allowed to run, but about our, as
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voters, sense of self-respect. Why
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go vote for some oddballs
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who did not lift a finger
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to earn our votes? Let us fight for
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a different standard of politics, and call elections
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only a process in which there is
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real competition and candidates
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who win votes and support for themselves
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through their work and by defending our rights. But right now
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a deception is taking place, and to protect ourselves
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we must not participate in it.
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Actively boycott these elections.
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Undermine turnout. Convince everyone around you to do
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the same. The voters' strike
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continues. Subscribe to our channel.
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They tell the truth here.