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Billy_TParticipantZN,
Tried to post a response to the youguv poll. No luck. Might be the link to an Emma Goldman article. Not sure. Shouldn’t have been a problem.
Billy_TParticipant== I dont think she gets anything wrong about Putin/Trump. But then I dont think Jimmy Dore gets anything wrong about Biden and M4A.
Solnit and Dore both give me problems. If you read Solnit stuff (and i have two of her books) she blames Reps, and was soft on Obama. She actually blamed ‘the people’ for not essentially moving Obama more to the left. She didnt blame him. So she triggers me, the same way Dore triggers me or any ‘blue team’ or ‘red team’ person triggers me.
The only ones who dont trigger me, at this late stage of my life are the folks who rip into the dems and the reps, both. And that aint Solnit, and that aint Dore. Its the anti-capitalists. And there aint many out there in the US.
I mean, why doesnt she do an article about how her Dems and the reps are both destroying peace and life on this planet? Why is that impossible for her (and Dore, and all the rest) to do? I suspect its because they would not be able to earn a living in this country. w v
WV,
Interesting. Then you know a lot more about Solnit’s work than I do. I’ve just heard good things about her, mostly in literary arts journals. But I haven’t read any of her books yet.
To your main point. I agree critics should go after both parts of the duopoly, and the capitalists who pull their strings. But we live in a winner-take-all system, politically and economically. Two rotten choices. One wins, the other loses, obviously. Go after both, and you may indirectly aid and abet the party you think is more rotten — to one degree or another. So they go after the one they think is more odious. Or, they simply see them as good versus bad, and it’s a very easy call for them.
Like you, I see them as both rotten. But I’m also guessing that I see a much greater difference between them than you do, as far as their relative impact on life and the planet. I think it actually matters which of our two horrible choices holds power, and that’s reinforced for me almost on an hourly basis these days.
I want them both to hit the road, Jack. But as long as we have just the two choices . . . I’ll take a centrist, corporate Dem eight days a week over a fascist. And I think those are our choices right now.
Billy_TParticipantRebecca’s views do not resonate with me, fwiw: “…One of the things I liked about the idea of an Elizabeth Warren presidency was her boldness and acuity in diagnosing the sheer scale of the problem and her radical but pragmatic solutions…” R. Solnit w v
Well, hopefully, you’re not dismissing her article about Trump/Putin based just on her views about Warren. Remember the earlier discussion about friendships between people with differing political views?
;>)
It is possible to like Warren and tell the truth about Trump/Putin, etc. etc. The former doesn’t rule out the latter.
Yes, it’s a shame that some people think of Warren as “progressive.” But I’d take the moderate senator from Massachusetts over anyone the GOP offers — seven days a week and twice on Sunday. She’s not Sanders, of course, but then Sanders doesn’t go nearly far enough to the left for me. I see him as “moderate” too. Just a different kind of moderate. He wants Denmark on the Potomac. I suspect Warren wants a toned down FDR.
Aside from her take on Warren, what do you think Solnit gets wrong?
Billy_TParticipantSame caveat goes for the Salon article. Lotsa links within the article, so it’s best read on the site.
Billy_TParticipantI missed this until just now, WV. Still have about 20 minutes left. Fascinating.
I read several of Garcia Marquez’s novels when I was younger, and some of his short stories, but never really delved into his politics. Of course, in general, most of the writers of the Latin American “Boom” period were leftists, but there were exceptions. Some of them moved across the spectrum over time, too, usually from left to right, unfortunately. I think (but am not sure) that was the case for Octavio Paz and Mario Vargas Llosa, whom I met at a book-signing years and years ago. Though Jorge Luis Borges, if memory serves, remained a conservative, but was basically “apolitical” for the most part.
It’s interesting that most of them could retain their friendships, despite major political differences. I imagine that would not be the case if they were coming of age today.
Thanks for posting this.
Billy_TParticipantThought it would add to the above to also post the latest from Chauncey Devega,
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/02/how-supremacy-fuels-the-love-affair-with-vladimir-putin/
How white supremacy fuels the Republican love affair with Vladimir Putin
The American right’s romance with Putin is no mystery: Trumpers see him as leading a global war for whiteness
By Chauncey DeVega
Published March 2, 2022 6:01AM (EST)Racism is not an opinion. It is a fact.
This is true both in the United States and around the world.
As W.E.B. Du Bois presciently wrote in 1903, the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line. That is true in the 21st century as well, even if the context has changed — and that could remain true in the 22nd century as well (assuming humanity survives that long).
Racism and white supremacy continue to structure American society, largely by privileging some groups (those defined as “white”) and disadvantaging others (especially those deemed “Black,” but other nonwhites as well). These outcomes are the aggregate result of individual, systemic and institutional discrimination and other forms of racial animus. This has been a fixture of American life and society since before the founding of the republic through to the post-civil rights era and now the Age of Trump and a 21st-century form of fascism. In practice, racism and white supremacy are a “changing same,” constantly adapting over time to fit American society in support of the maintenance and expansion of white privilege, white power and white control.
Advertisement:RELATED: Right’s cynical attack on “critical race theory”: Old racist poison in a new bottle
Racial attitudes and values help to structure how Americans, particularly white Americans, feel about both domestic politics and foreign policy. For example, it is no surprise, and really no mystery — as some members of the mainstream news media and commentariat appear to believe — why many Republicans and other members of the white right defend or even embrace Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine. This is readily explainable: The Russian president is viewed by them as a champion of “conservative values” and the possibility of a return to what they have deluded themselves into believing was a “golden age” of white male Christian dominance over all areas of American (and global) society.
Putin’s politics, values and strategic goals, at least in a general sense, largely align with those of today’s Republican-fascist movement and the larger white right. Taken together, they are a global front aimed at undermining or destroying pluralism and multiracial democracy.
Robert Reich summarizes this in a new essay for the Guardian, where he writes: “The Trump-led Republican party does not openly support Putin, but the Republican party’s animus toward democracy is expressed in ways familiar to Putin and other autocrats. … Make no mistake: Putin’s authoritarian neo-fascism has rooted itself in America.”
Writing at Jewish Currents, David Klion explores this further:
On the right, leading voices like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Donald Trump himself have been more likely to offer actual defenses of Putin and Russia. … But there’s also a deeper ideological affinity between the Western far right and Putin’s Russia, one that emphasizes Russia’s Christianness and whiteness, its hostility to LGBTQ minorities, and its potential role as a bulwark against China, which many on the right view as 21st century America’s true geopolitical rival.
In an essay last Sunday for the New York Times, Emily Tamkin discusses the right’s preoccupation with Putin’s supposed “strength”:
Advertisement:“Strong” may be the key word here. In this construction, a strong leader is apparently one who cracks down on opposition, cultural and political, and does not concede. This idea then dovetails with right-wing ideas that liberal elites are actively corroding deeply held traditional values — including traditional gender roles. For those who spend a fair amount of airtime worrying about the emasculation of men, the kind of strength portrayed by Mr. Putin — who on Monday convened his top security officials and demanded they publicly stand and support him — is perhaps appealing.
Many of the admirers of the world’s strongmen on the American right appear to believe that the countries each of these men lead are beacons of whiteness, Christianity and conservative values. …
These comments, from the right, aren’t exactly advancing a new position. In 2018, the political commentator Pat Buchanan said that Mr. Putin and the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko were “standing up for traditional values against Western cultural elites.” …
Russia is neither all white nor all Christian — it is a country that encompasses several regions, religions and ethnicities. Still, it is often perceived as white. … [T]his construction of Mr. Putin as a beacon of far-right values began with the ultra-far-right nationalists in Europe and later spread to the United States.
James Risen is even more direct in a recent essay for the Intercept:
Advertisement:[Putin’s] brutal invasion of Ukraine is just the latest move in his long-running strategy to rebuild the Russian empire by any means necessary. But while Putin hasn’t strayed from his obsessions of 30-plus years ago, the U.S. Republican Party has been comprehensively altered into something that would have been unrecognizable in 1989. Today, much of the American right is in thrall to Putin and other autocrats, and a segment of the extreme right now harbors a hatred for Western democracy. The new American right somehow sees Putin as a guardian of white nationalism who will stand up to the “woke” left in the West. They don’t seem to care that he is a murderous dictator who has launched a war in the middle of Europe. …
But while other Republicans in Congress denounced Putin’s invasion, they refused to criticize Trump or other Putin sympathizers in their party. That follows the usual pattern within the GOP, in which establishment politicians try to ignore Trump — only to be overshadowed and eventually overwhelmed by him. …
In the United States, meanwhile, perhaps the biggest political question in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is whether the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party will continue its sympathy for and appeasement of Putin. For now, it seems likely that pro-Putin Republicans will continue to allow their hatred for progressives and adherence to white nationalism to blind them to what Putin really is.
These observations help to highlight three foundational realities about American politics and the color line in the post-civil rights era and the Age of Trump. The first of those is that today’s Republican Party is America’s and the world’s largest white supremacist and white identity organization.
Advertisement:The second is that “conservatism” and racism are now fully one and the same thing here in America.
The third is that on a fundamental level Trumpism and American neofascism are nothing new. Instead, they represent a continuation of evil forces that have long been present in American society — and show few signs of being vanquished. Ever since the invention of “race” as a concept in or around the 15th century, white supremacy and racism have been a global project. In America today, the Republican Party and “conservative” movement are the leading proponents of such anti-human ideas and values — and are wholly invested in perpetuating and strengthening them far into the future.
Billy_TParticipantIf you disagree with me, it’s because you were never a real Rams fan.
No one can call themselves a true Rams fan if they don’t acknowledge the game-changing impact of Billy Truax — and that includes the Super Bowl this season. Aaron Donald? Sure. But without the foundation put in place by Billy Truax, none of this would have been possible.
Back to Ukraine for a moment:
Part of the calculus for any act of war: If we don’t do this, X will happen. But there’s another huge part that all too often is discounted: If we do go to war, what are the consequences?
I think, going in, Putin had to know that the world would react in a seriously negative manner. He likely didn’t foresee the extent or the solidarity of reactions — Switzerland’s break with neutrality, and all the sports, tech, and entertainment bans, for instance. But he must have known he would be largely isolated and it would hurt him financially. He also must have known that NATO would then have no reason to ever hold back from further expansion. The “if you expand, I will attack” card is gone after he invades.
To make a long story shorter, I personally can’t see any “upside” for him or Russia, thinking in pre-war terms. None. Zero. Zip. And that’s not even counting the most important downside, the massive loss of life and health that doesn’t seem to ever end after a war. He and Russia lose a ton, and his best case scenario is that he puts a Russian puppet in charge of Ukraine, while the entire world is unified in opposition. NATO has support now to do the very thing Putin said was a threat to Russia. As in, his invasion will cause more NATO expansion. Plus, the EU drops Putin like a bad dream. As in, things are far worse for Putin and Russia after even a “successful” invasion.
Billy_TParticipantWV,
Good response. And spiced up with some of your ™humor too. That’s needed right now.
My earlier long and winded road, regarding capitalism: I think if I hadn’t written it, I wouldn’t know what the hell I was saying either.
;>)
Basically, on your earlier question about ultimate responsibility for the invasion: Yes, capitalism. It creates an entirely artificial climate of bottom-up competition for jobs and scarce resources, to go with the top-down stuff that’s always been there. It’s likely the first economic system in history that developed its own gaslighting infrastructure to create (a mostly successful) buy-in from the masses.
Capitalism depends on that, unlike any previous system. It has to create a climate where people think they’re involved with this crap by choice, instead of via a matrix of force and dire necessity. This also leads to our being pitted against each other, and seeing this as “natural” when it’s not. That gets us closer to accepting war too. The concept of the nation-state does some heavy lifting along those lines as well. But it’s mostly the global economic system.
My take on Ukraine, however, is that this is a specific event, with specific moral agents involved, and only one of them can say No. Putin had the power to just say No. We’re not going to invade. We’re going to hold good-faith talks with Zelensky and company and try to persuade him to stay out of NATO, if that’s our desire. Not via threats — which is all Putin has done for two decades — but through actual negotiations.
In my view, this specific case is entirely on Putin. He didn’t have to invade. Nothing forced him to, except for his own lust to extend his already gargantuan nation-state.
Billy_TParticipantWV,
Saw that I dealt with similar questions yesterday, in the 9:11am post. Reading that one should make my recent answer a bit clearer.
Would appreciate a response. Hope all is well.
Billy_TParticipantAlso, I’m not seeing any formal agreement by NATO to accept Putin’s demand to block new countries from joining. He made the demand. Doesn’t mean NATO agreed to it.
And this aspect bothers me as well: I think the authors who tried to equate NATO’s expansion with Putin’s invasion — or say the former justifies the latter — need to re-calibrate their moral compasses. Nation-states that willingly join an association aren’t in the same universe as nation-states that seek to block that at the point of a gun. There is an obvious moral and ethical distinction between the former Warsaw Pact countries choosing to join NATO, and Putin’s gobbling up Georgia, Crimea, and now Ukraine. I would think this would be easy for leftists. Condemn Putin’s actions, full stop.
Billy_TParticipant======== Cant say I understand any of that, BT. w v
I guess it is a bit long-winded. Will try to boil it down.
I’m seeing, especially since 2015/2016, an inordinate amount of energy spent (from some on the left) trying to “understand” Russia’s actions — and by extension, Trump’s. This can take the form of absolute denial that things we know happened ever happened. Or it may just be jumping through endless hoops trying to excuse it, or just saying none of it matters. This all too often lines up perfectly with GOP talking points, Fox News, and Putin’s propaganda, etc. etc. These same people do not spent one iota of time trying to “understand” the actions of people and entities on the other “side(s).
I would get it if the same attempt to “understand” was evenly applied, or its opposite: condemnations of all sides without explanations. But I do not get the lopsided nature of the critique, nor do I get why Putin and Trump are the objects being defended in the first place. As mentioned, I would if “leftists” were fighting on behalf of the oppressed, the powerless, the earth, or their champions — as per leftist tradition. But Putin is a far-right dictator, and quite possibly the world’s richest man. Trump is a billionaire too. Both men are in direct opposition to every leftist stance on the books, and Trump and his party, especially, constantly demonize the entire left.
Billy_TParticipantThe critique of western europe and north america (and China) combined in terms of world colonial, economic, and technological effect is of course something you can count on everyone here agreeing with.
Yep. The whole post, but this especially.
Billy_TParticipantQuick follow-up:
I should have mentioned This Life, by Martin Hägglund. I think his book’s philosophical/social analysis is one of the best I’ve encountered, and the closest to my own sense of what should be and why.
Billy_TParticipantThe fear expansion of Euro-American hegemony, though. .
Which is only the case because they want their own expanded hegemony. ..
=== I could not disagree more. I see NATO as a terrorist organization seeking hegemony, in service of a capitalist system that has condemned all life on Earth to doom. 🙂 w v
I agree with you about capitalism’s effects, and want it all gone — via non-violent, democratic change. No remnants. Replaced by an updated, future-proofed version out of Kropotkin and Morris, with a bit of James C. Scott thrown in for good measure. But I think your comment points to my earlier questions.
Your condemnation of NATO is absolute and immediate, without any attempt to try to figure out its possible rationales, or any sequence of cause and effect through the decades. It just flat out condemns NATO.
When it comes to Russia, however, or some other entity seen as in opposition to the West, ginormous energy is expended by some to “explain” their actions, present rationales, or even dismiss the idea that they’ve done what has been claimed.
Again, I would understand this a lot more if the people and entities involved really were “oppositional” to capitalism and its effects. If they were champions of the planet and its people across the globe. But that’s not Russia, and that’s not Trump, obviously. If anything, they’re even more intensely on Team Exploitation/Waste/Pollution, and they share that white supremacy/anti-LGBTQ “base.”
Billy_TParticipantZN,
Off topic: Just tried to post a new thread on the latest IPCC climate report. Stuck in moderation. May be the report/link is a pdf.
Billy_TParticipantMy edit to the above didn’t make it into the post:
I see the large red letters and am absolutely behind “condemn war everywhere!” But, it’s typically not done every time a new flashpoint tragedy hits the globe. If it were done, that would weaken the effect of reportage on each individual flashpoint/horror/atrocity. Humans have only so much empathy/compassion to give at any one moment in time. Spread it out, everywhere, all at once, and it’s going to be drastically watered down.
Give all of those individual shocks their due, in context, in depth. It generally doesn’t work to merge them all together as one, every time the hammer comes down on humanity and the planet, etc.
Billy_TParticipantZooey,
My take on that “redfish” map? It seems like “whataboutism” in the service of getting people to shut up about Russian aggression. It doesn’t strike me as “Yes, we need to condemn Russia’s aggression, full-stop, along with all the other wars and coups and economic imperialism and environmental destruction happening right now!” If it were, there wouldn’t be all the labored attempts to rationalize Russia’s invasion. The same kind of “it’s just wrong” approach would apply.
Billy_TParticipantTilting at windmills: Clicking on the author’s link to Zooey’s revamped article, I bumped into a mention of Jimmy Dore. Couldn’t help thinking then about all the efforts by Dore, Greenwald, Mate, and a few others to explain, dismiss, justify, and in effect support Russian aggression against other nations, going back to its election interference at least. All too often, they use the same language as Trump and the GOP to do it. This, at least indirectly, aids and abets the far-right Trump, the far-right Putin, and their supporters.
Listening to music as I walked yesterday, politics kept intruding. Probably because it was a curated station with lots of antiwar music from the 1960s and 70s. So Zazen died and I zoomed out and thought: These same folks never apply any of that energy to explaining, justifying, or dismissing actions taken by America or NATO, especially if it involves those evil “corporate Dems.” Not that they should. But they don’t.
Just an assumed, unquestioned condemnation of the US, with a particular focus on the Dems and the (GOP’s invented) “deep state.” Zero effort is made to figure out why they act as they do. No endless explanations of “Well, X did this to Y 20 years ago, and Z is seen as a threat here, cuz A, B, and C.” It’s just instant judgment, instant blanket condemnation, and zero fucks given. Russia? “We’re going to dig and dig until we find something to justify their violent aggression!”
This has always puzzled me to no end. Not because of the critique of US policy. I get that and share most of it with them. US/corporate policy pisses me off to no end and drives me up the wall. And I’ve worked hard to study it, and studying that makes me angrier and angrier. I’m puzzled because the critique is so selectively applied, and all too often in the service of far-right individuals and entities. I’m puzzled because the same drive to explain is never there for the US and the West in general, especially if it involves “corporate Dems.”
As already mentioned, I favor the “a pox on all their houses” approach, but if there is going to be a concerted effort to find all the cause and effect routes through history, it’s disingenuous to limit those efforts to just Russia — and by extension, Trump. And since the people in question are supposedly “leftists,” one would think they would have chosen fellow leftists to champion, not far-right sociopaths. One would think they’d focus their time and energy supporting the powerless, the oppressed, the truly needy — per leftist tradition — not Russian oligarchs and American billionaires.
I think we leftists need to at least question their assumptions, their intentions, motives, and analyses — if for no other reason than the obvious lopsidedness of their critique.
Billy_TParticipantI did explain that stance though. As I see it, no one in their right mind believes that NATO is an aggressive force capable of using military might to acquire territory. NATO is not going to invade anyone. And that’s regardless what you think of NATO. Putin, on the other hand, sees NATO as threatening his own aggressive interests in re-acquiring the lost portions of the old USSR’s eastern European empire. Not that different from Serbia trying to grab what it could from the collapse of Yugoslavia. Russia is not threatened by NATO. Russian imperial expansion is threatened by NATO. I honestly believe that all stands to reason and in fact, to me, it seems like it is completely obvious. Anyway. What Putin “sees as a threat” is of no interest to me, except that it explains his pathologies as a right-wing dictator. To me, it’s like a domestic abuser who believes people calling him on his violence means they are aggressively threatening to harm an innocent person.
Yeah, I don’t think they fear a ground invasion of NATO. The fear expansion of Euro-American hegemony, though. NATO can take over countries without firing a shot.
Think about the sequence here, though. Russia invades, then NATO, fractured under Trump, unites. Before Russia invaded, they had all kinds of deals with Europe, with more in the pipeline, literally.
Russia invades and there are consequences. Russia had nothing to fear from NATO unless it invaded. This reminds me of the old joke:
“Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this!” Patient raises his arm high above his head.
“Don’t do that.”
Billy_TParticipantZooey,
Thanks for taking the time and trouble to clean up that article. Will dig in after I get back from a walk.
Billy_TParticipant======= BT, I dont see ‘anyone’ on ‘this’ board ‘defending’ the invasion. Some of us are ‘explaining’ why he invaded. Thats not the same as saying “its ok” or “defending” it. Its the same as ‘explaining’ why the US invaded Iraq. We can talk about Oil, and Power and Privatization, and Geo-Capitalist-Politics — but that doesnt mean we are ‘defending’ the invasion of Iraq. The ‘explanations’ I’ve seen about why Putin invaded seem accurate to me. (and they have nothing to do with ‘nazis’ — thats just an obvious cover story, with grains of truth to this or that degree) Why do YOU think he invaded? w v
Never said any of you defended the invasion. I’m referring to some of the articles posted, and a general sense of what some on the left — again, people with audiences (like Chris Hedges) — tend to do in recent times. I thought that was understood, going in.
If we’re just talking about Putin’s possible motives, I think it’s mostly cuz he thinks he can. That he knows he has the military to do it, and he wants to expand his already massive borders. It’s a power grab, quite literally, at least in the form of regime change, for starters.
Basically, I agree with ZN’s post from 1:15pm. I’d add that this does seem all the more WTF, happening more than 20 years after the USSR died. Good comparison with Yugoslavia: the resultant wars and other forms of mayhem mostly occurred rapidly after that — within a few years, primarily.
I’ll throw my own question into the hat: Is it possible that some analysts are making this more complex than it really is? Again, Putin has been in power for 22 years. No one in power for that long is likely to be a particularly “rational” actor. King, queen, emperor, CEO, or football coach. They’re a good bit on their way to some form of sociopathology, if not drowning in it — with rare exceptions. Is it possible that we’re all working too hard to figure this out?
Billy_TParticipantBilly_TParticipantPutting one of the pics here, so it won’t upset the software:
Billy_TParticipantI suggested you clean it up first by posting it in a place that strips the code first.
In case anyone missed it, this is a good software program for doing the above, and it’s free:
Billy_TParticipantA site for articles you may not be able to get to.
https://www.printfriendly.com/
Isn’t helpful for cut and paste, but it makes most of the articles accessible/readable.
Guessing you guys have noticed this for some time, the inverted progression of access to news: Everything, to certain articles, to limited numbers, to two, to one, to none without a subscription. Used to be workarounds, like clearing cache and cookies, but they’ve mostly been closed off at the pass. The one listed above will likely have a short life too.
Billy_TParticipantI’m just not buying the legitimacy of their feeling threatened enough to start a war.
I don’t, either. It seems far more likely to me that Russia is worried about Ukraine emerging as a competitor in the European natural gas market. Ukraine’s emergence as a significant supplier of natural gas would come at Russia’s expense. That, to me, makes the most sense of anything I’ve seen.
Makes sense to me, too.
Of course, if we invested a ton in Solar, Wind, etc. etc. . . . we could make all of it irrelevant. And if we don’t, we Sapiens won’t survive much into the 22nd century.
Billy_TParticipantTragic irony:
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has provoked a far more united NATO and possibly the biggest build-up in defense by Germany in more than 70 years . . .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/27/europe-germany-defense-russia-ukraine/
excerpt:
As over 100,000 rally for Ukraine, Germany announces vast defense spending increase that may upend European security policy
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday announced a major increase in the country’s defense spending, marking one of the most significant changes in decades to the country’s post-World War II approach to security and possibly upending European defense policy.
German lawmakers were still debating the plans as over 100,000 protesters assembled just a few meters away in front of the Brandenburg Gate to rally for peace. The scale of the protest — one of the largest in years — took authorities by surprise, and provided a visible display of just how deeply Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken Germans this week.
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and the most populous nation in the E.U., had long frustrated the United States and allies across the continent with its hesitation to invest more in its military. Its stance obstructed numerous attempts to formulate a more ambitious European security strategy, including repeated efforts from French President Emmanuel Macron to form a European army.
Billy_TParticipantThanks, Zooey. Maps help. Though I think the angle of that one distorts the situation a bit. It makes the surrounding countries look bigger than they really are, relative to Russia. It’s actually, as you know, massive. No nation comes close to it in size.
I’m just not buying the legitimacy of their feeling threatened enough to start a war. It’s sheer paranoia, IMO, though it at least has the benefit of actual geographical proximity. US invasions of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. . . . can’t claim even that much.
(Listening to Country Joe McDonald, among other 1960/70s classics, as I write this . . .)
Again, my hobby horse: We can’t let “we do it too” stop us from condemning the indefensible.
Billy_TParticipantQuick follow-up:
Putin has ruled for (I think) 22 years now. He’s nearly 70.
My gut sense is that serious aspirations to rule a corporation or country already hint at likely sociopathic tendencies — to some degree. All kinds of psych studies tell us that holding power warps the mind and does serious damage to our moral compasses. It actually takes great effort to mitigate for any of that. The given is that power strips us of empathy, compassion, and overall solidarity with our fellow humans — again, to various degrees. It’s not logical to believe Putin has become more compassionate, rational, or wise with the years.
Billy_TParticipantI haven’t seen the “Putin is a lunatic” narrative until recently. If anything, the usual Western story was to paint him as a master chess player, a kind of brilliant Bond villain of sorts. Fear him because he’s diabolically clever, etc. Yes, I know that’s overgeneralizing, but, I’m trying to save some space here.
I think the beginnings of the “lunatic” arc are coming (mostly) from long-time state department folks who have known Putin for two decades. They’re saying they see a different person now, and they found his recent speech ominous, with its mendacious accusations that the Jewish Zelensky is a Nazi, etc. Putin also threatened nuclear war. Nuclear war. If that doesn’t get the “lunatic” rating, I’m not sure what should.
I’m also not sympathetic to the various calls to rationalize Putin’s actions based on encroachment on Russia’s borders. It exists on land conquered over centuries of empire-building — as is the case with the US too, of course (but in a more compressed manner). Russia went from centuries of a Czarist empire where it violently gobbled up its neighbors, to an all too brief flash of leftist democracy, with great hopes of breaking up that empire, to an absolute betrayal of that left-populist revolution and a new consolidation. Then, with the end of the USSR, it still retained most of the original Romanov lands, shedding relatively little, which Putin has tried to gobble up again, here and there. He’s ruled as an uber-capitalist kleptocrat, and far-right ideologue, and funds far-right movements all across the globe. He’s the darling of the far-right in America now, especially its growing Trumpist wing. We’re living in the Twilight Zone.
For me, this is an easy call. We’re all Ukrainians now.
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