I think that there are excesses that exist in all societies. I won't say it's normal to have them, but it's natural to have them. I'm watching very closely ... what Snowden has done. I don't know him personally. I wanted to talk to him, but all of the security people didn't allow me to. But I think that he took the wrong approach to a very right thing which he was doing. Just the implementation was wrong. There was a clear platform to what he was doing, although of course that there were some mistakes made.
Ilya PonomarevMy political tradition is on the left, but I think that more modern leftists, they sometimes get stuck with this vision of large government and social benefits and everything and that's against what is my position, because I think that the ultimate vision of Marx, Engels, and those people was to eliminate government entities and to give as much power to the people. And in modern standing that means direct democracy, that means all the power to the communities, it means gradually eliminating all government oppression on the society. And 100 years ago, leftists' major allies were labor unions.
Ilya PonomarevI think that it's inevitable if society will be run by old-timers who are still in the paradigm of the past, so I think the real way to resolve this is if the entrepreneurs go into politics and gradually take over and push for their agenda.
Ilya PonomarevI think that we are right now - the society - is living in the Facebook era and the political system is still in the 19th century prior to the Industrial era. Why for God's sake do you need to be socially liberal and economically conservative? Or to be economically market-oriented but at the same time socially, extremely conservative? Why can't you be free in both dimensions?
Ilya PonomarevWe need to convince him that if he makes the decision to go, that we are ready to trade his personal security for peaceful resignation. That's very important because we're all afraid that he will stick to power to his deathbed and just kill a lot of people along the way. If he is willing to go, we shall buy him an island in the Caribbean or in the Pacific Ocean with nice girls - like a separate country for him.
Ilya Ponomarev