Yes, like I said, will create more democracies, outside Russia like Belarus, some of the ‘stans, as well as some new inside Russia. This should have happened a long time ago, under Gorbechev and Yeltsin. That was a huge fail by the west. I think we did a lot of damage by not diplomatically intervening more when the USSR broke apart. We g…
Yes, like I said, will create more democracies, outside Russia like Belarus, some of the ‘stans, as well as some new inside Russia. This should have happened a long time ago, under Gorbechev and Yeltsin. That was a huge fail by the west. I think we did a lot of damage by not diplomatically intervening more when the USSR broke apart. We got consumed in supporting capitalism and naively believed Capitalism would insure democracy. We need to support Democracy as messy as it is when birthed.
a lot of people, I think, agree with this. but remember that, at the time, this neoliberal horseshit was very much on the upswing and a lot of the policy people here did, in fact, equate capitalism with democracy. wasn't it the Milton Friedman era? I know that be fore and just after this war started, lots of people were seizing the words of guys like Mearsheimer and his ilk to--at least in some very stupid cases--defend Putin and even, to a degree, his invasion. so okay, we missed an opportunity and even okay to NATO expansion being something Putin was very paranoid about. but beyond that, the guy's always been a monster.
when I think about Putin, I'm reminded of Rubeshev, the old commissar in "Darkness at Noon," who isn't as upset at being tortured and, ultimately, murdered as he is about the fact that the guy torturing him is too young to have known the abundant, completely ordinary human pleasures that were an everyday part of pre-Soviet life. Putin is precisely one of those torturers. when Orwell reviewed the book, he said that Koestler hadn't just soured on Stalin, he'd soured on the nature of revolution itself. I think Orwell was correct about Koestler and, increasingly, it feels to me that Koestler was also probably right.
Yes, like I said, will create more democracies, outside Russia like Belarus, some of the ‘stans, as well as some new inside Russia. This should have happened a long time ago, under Gorbechev and Yeltsin. That was a huge fail by the west. I think we did a lot of damage by not diplomatically intervening more when the USSR broke apart. We got consumed in supporting capitalism and naively believed Capitalism would insure democracy. We need to support Democracy as messy as it is when birthed.
a lot of people, I think, agree with this. but remember that, at the time, this neoliberal horseshit was very much on the upswing and a lot of the policy people here did, in fact, equate capitalism with democracy. wasn't it the Milton Friedman era? I know that be fore and just after this war started, lots of people were seizing the words of guys like Mearsheimer and his ilk to--at least in some very stupid cases--defend Putin and even, to a degree, his invasion. so okay, we missed an opportunity and even okay to NATO expansion being something Putin was very paranoid about. but beyond that, the guy's always been a monster.
when I think about Putin, I'm reminded of Rubeshev, the old commissar in "Darkness at Noon," who isn't as upset at being tortured and, ultimately, murdered as he is about the fact that the guy torturing him is too young to have known the abundant, completely ordinary human pleasures that were an everyday part of pre-Soviet life. Putin is precisely one of those torturers. when Orwell reviewed the book, he said that Koestler hadn't just soured on Stalin, he'd soured on the nature of revolution itself. I think Orwell was correct about Koestler and, increasingly, it feels to me that Koestler was also probably right.
No "probably" about it. He was right.