Is It Important Governments Pretend To Have Real Relationships?

Due to their labyrinthian nature, governments tend to naturally avoid responsibility while nailing the simpler to define individuals for the littlest things. Why justice seems imbalanced toward the wealthy when they're, sometimes, just more difficult targets in the pecking order of things. 
Well, as Ellen Barry reported, Friday, Jan. 25, in The New York Times in U.S. Withdraws From Project With Russia on Civil Society, rubber stamps is what are in abundance when it comes to government relations. Ms. Barry wrote -  The United States, in answer to Russia’s recent crackdown on civil society groups, is withdrawing from a bilateral Russian-American working group on civil society. A three-year-old project, that embodied the spirit of the “reset” between Washington and Moscow. The US–Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission.

Imagery, as highlighted by Ms. Barry's strategically placed middle sentence. - The working group had not met in a plenary session for more than a year, amid disputes between the two sides about its scope and format.

Otherwise known in politics as a boondoggle. Where doing the right thing is constructed into a big waste of time. 

As - Yuri Dzhibladze, president of the Center for Development of Democracy and Human Rights, an advocacy group based in Moscow, quoted by The Times, said,  - “In practice, it has turned out that human rights and the rule of law and democracy have all but disappeared from the agenda in the U.S.-Russia dialogue. A symbolic anatomy of the failure of the reset policy. This particular working group has not been too helpful, and I’m glad it is gone. We should not pretend that this has been a real mechanism for dialogue.”

Jessica Allina-Pisano

Still, obviously decision makers do not intend to lack for excuses. Just wait. Soon everything will be adequately polished and Moscow delinquents stashed and warehoused away. Then, as if by nothing near magic, there'll be an acceptance of outright Potemkin Villages, no less, just as New York City's polished Times Square showcases America's chromed domed success while what's tarnished beneath remains stained. Just because Russia refuses to face civil society, doesn't mean America should pretend our own flaws aren't as bad as having the other side's. If America is greener, we should keep improving.

Anyway, Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, said he regretted the American decision but played down its importance. He said, “It means nothing, actually. We deeply regret that we’ve been deprived of one of the formats of dialogue, without compensating its absence with a new one. We are very sorry about that. It’s negative for both Moscow and Washington.”

Meaning, naming a new group to pretend would have been entirely okay? Sure, the spokesman wasn't implying the creation of more façades is acceptable. But he may as well have. 

Mr. Putin's spokesman said the dissolving did not pose a great loss, especially because Russia insists its domestic affairs should not be subject to international scrutiny. 

There you go, that's original. Its not as if a Russian spokesperson ever insisted on minding your own business when addressing the public before. 

Mr. Peskov said, “We cannot discuss our domestic affairs. We can share our views, exchange our opinions, but we can never discuss our domestic affairs.” 

Yet Mother-Country patriotism aside, Russia's recent deluge of legislative calculations just seem to be a method of buying time. After all, no one really intends to avoid whatever foreigners feel comfortable spending in Russia? 

Remember the end of the Soviet Union? When people just gave up and there weren't enough citizens lined up at the economic trough to keep the operation afloat? That was capitalism that collapsed, when too few benefit. When its all struggle for little reward. That's what a president should listen for and not just what would satisfy the aristocrats. Here's wishing, at least, President Putin's spokesperson lightens up.

RT itself also reported Friday, Moscow regrets US pullout from bilateral commission on human rights. Beginning - The United States has delivered the latest setback to Russia-US relations by announcing it will no longer participate in the Russian-American Bilateral Presidential Commission on Civil Society.

Suffice it to say, free speech is still an inadequate substitute for transparency. 
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Fabulous. According to The New York Times, North Korean Leader Vows ‘High-Profile’ Retaliation Over New U.N. Sanctions. By Choe Sang-Hun, January 27, 2013. Seoul, South Korea — Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has ordered his top military and Party officials to take “substantial and high-profile important State measures” to retaliate against American-led United Nations sanctions on the country, The North's Official Media reported Sunday. 

After I wrote such conciliatory, hopeful sounding, essays toward Kim Jong-un?
June 14, 2012 Soapbox View 
October 15, Soapbox View 

Its just posturing as of the old days with whatever there is to bargain with lying around. Where government interests are wrongly substituted for their people. An easily reached for excuse apparently as governments throughout the world justify their rights over their individuals. 

Does anything like an opinion really exist in North Korea? How the hell did people ever justify thought control, propaganda/advertising, as the best way to control and define and rule their citizenry? Except ultimately combining together to rule ourselves militarily is how we evolved to this point where the individual is still regarded as less important than The State. When the rights of the individual is the principle upon which the United States of America was founded?

Talking it out at least tries to pretend something is being solved. Surely Kim Jong-un can speak?