A Dogfight Against Putin's Flying Monkeys

This will be a short post.  I am trying to get my weekly schedule under control.  However, there is continuing news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and there is therefore need to provide commentary to put it into context.

First, it appears that Vladimir Putin has begun to launch extra squadrons of flying monkeys in order to spread disinformation and to influence world opinion in his favor.  Several thousand such monkeys organized a protest in Germany to oppose the German government's decision to send more effective arms to Ukraine to help drive out the Russian invaders.  And the government of China's Xi Jinping has also tried to pressure the people of Ukraine into accepting a false "peace" which would do nothing to protect them from continued Russian aggression.  There are also the usual highly-placed mouthpieces in the West who are trying to cast doubt on the rightness of the West's continued support of Ukraine.  However, ordinary citizens in the West have begun to organize their own rallies to demonstrate their continued support of the people of Ukraine and their continued opposition to the thuggish Russian invasion.  And Poland has begun openly supplying Ukraine with military aid.  

The Russian government knows that if the West supplies Ukraine with adequate weaponry, the Russian invasion will be decisively defeated.  Therefore the voices of Putin's flying monkeys may well represent a cry of desperation.  For anyone who is genuinely confused about the character of Russia or of the thug named Vladimir Putin, please read the posts I have linked on the sidebar of this blog under the heading, "Russia."

P.S. I still need to do research before I write the next post in my series of posts on precarity and the precariat.  In future posts in this series, I hope to illustrate the connection between the oligarchs who rule Russia and China and some of the oligarchs who have taken root in the West.  Also, there is a bright bit of good news: the Russian invasion of Ukraine has motivated Europe to engage in a massive build-out of renewable electricity generation capacity.  This has resulted in a situation in which today Europe produces more of its electricity from renewables than from natural gas.  If Russia was hoping to use its oil and gas reserves as a tool to enslave the rest of the world, hopefully the Russians are now starting to realize that they have shot themselves in the foot.

Christopher Caldwell's Sympathy for Vladimir Putin's Point of View

The New York Times recently ran an opinion piece by a Mr. Christopher Caldwell who chided the Biden administration for "escalating" the war between Ukraine and Russia by supplying M1 main battle tanks to Ukraine.  Mr. Caldwell's point of view is similar to that of some other highly-placed commentators writing for outfits such as Foreign Policy magazine, as well as a certain clueless former rock star associated with Pink Floyd.  It seems these people want the West to put up no opposition to the narcissistic desire of Russia to establish a global empire.

That doesn't fly with me.  Russia has been guilty of subverting and destabilizing the democratic process in a large number of nations, including the United States.  Russia has aggressively re-asserted its imperial dominance over a number of nations which had been in the process of being bled dry by the imperial Russian center during the days of the Soviet Union.  Those nations are once again being bled dry by Moscow under Putin.  Every nation that Russia has touched over the last two decades has begun to turn to garbage.  If the West wants to live in a world that has been turned entirely into garbage, it need do nothing more than capitulate to Russia.  I, however, do not want to live in such a world, subject to the evil, perverted desires of people like Vladimir Putin and Aleksandr Dugin.  Therefore, I choose to resist.  And I urge all who love freedom to resist.  If the world resists successfully, then Russian power will be shattered and the world will be delivered from a major threat.  Russia must lose.  If that makes Christopher Caldwwell and his fellow travelers unhappy, then I would invite them to move to Russia or Belarus or Chechnya or Georgia or Kazakhstan and live under Putin, since they seem to like living in the midst of garbage.  They should either put up or shut up.

Why Nuclear Threatening Won't Work

It appears finally that the West is going to get off the dime and send Ukraine the heavy weapons it needs to defeat the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Putin has responded by using his flying monkeys to send a message to the West that if Russia loses, the result will be nuclear war.  There's just one problem.  Putin's Russia has shown what it will do to all those whom it conquers by its treatment of Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territory.  By the pronouncements of not only Putin, but of fascist thugs like Aleksandr Dugin, Russia has shown what it wants to do to the entire world.  If Russia is allowed to win, Russia will turn the entire world into the toilet bowl of Russia.  That is unacceptable.  Given a choice between this option and nuclear war, frankly, I'd rather take my chances on nuclear war.  I do not say this lightly.  Because of my moral stance, I would much rather see a nonviolent solution, especially if that nonviolent solution was achieved through the coercive use of nonviolent economic power to destroy Russia's ability to make war.  But allowing Russia to have its way is not an option.  Russian power must be destroyed.  And those in the West who continue to make excuses for Russia or to play telephone tag for Russia or to be sock puppets for Russia must learn to shut their mouths.

The West must stop allowing its fight against Russian imperialism to be dictated by the rules the Russians seek to impose on us.  In other words, we must do whatever it takes to destroy Russian imperialism.  Whatever it takes.

The West Must Defeat Russia

Please note the title of this post.  Note that it is not in the passive voice, but the active voice.  Russia has launched repeated all-out assaults in an attempt to break Ukrainian defenses.  The latest assault is against the Ukrainian town of Soledar.  The Ukrainians have repeatedly proven time and time again that they are willing to fight with valor and determination against thuggish Russian aggression.  However, the West has repeatedly been somewhat timorous and restrained in supplying weapons to Ukraine in order that Ukraine might drive Russian thug invaders from its territory.  So the world has had to witness repeated cliffhangers in the story of Ukraine's fight to liberate itself.

This has got to stop.  I cannot believe that we in the West have allowed Russia's dangerous aggression to go on for so long!  The West must have the courage to do whatever it takes to swiftly destroy Russia's military power.  Those in the West who are afraid of what Russia might do if it is defied and confronted should rather consider what Russia will certainly do if it is allowed to win.  Narcissists, bullies and thugs always escalate when they are not soundly and effectively stopped at the first sign of aggression.  Appeasement never works.  We must ask ourselves whether the cowards among us are paving the way for a world in which we allow ourselves to be trashed by Russia.  Russia must be stopped dead in its tracks.  The West must at the very least send to Ukraine whaever weaponry it takes for Ukraine to drive Russian thugs out of its territory and keep them out.  Please write your Congressional representative or senator and write the President also to ask that the United States send whatever weaponry Ukraine needs - including both long-range missiles and heavy tanks - and that this military aid be sent swiftly.  

Why Russian Power Must Be Destroyed

It's interesting (but hardly surprising) that some of the members of the incoming Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives are pushing for an end to U.S. aid to Ukraine as Ukraine fights to rid itself of Russian invaders.  What is a bit more disappointing is the presence of supposed voices on the American "left" who are clamoring for the same thing, and who are pleading for a "negotiated settlement" to the war in Ukraine.  

It is because of a failure on the part of decent people in the United States to organize that the Republicans won a majority of House seats in the 2022 elections.  It is because of a failure on the part of decent people in the U.S. that the voices clamoring for "negotiations" and an end to U.S. aid to Ukraine have gained any kind of traction.  But I'd like to remind the owners of these voices of a few things.  First, we can see Russia's invasion of Ukraine as part of a continuum of Russian actions designed to establish a global Russian empire.  Second, although Russia has set itself up as a leader of the Global Far Right and a champion of white supremacy, the invasion of Ukraine should teach those mouthpieces for "negotiation" and isolationism in the West that Russia does not even view all white people as equal.  By making a deal with the devil, these people may find themselves in the shocking position of being low rungs on a ladder whose rungs are stepped on and kicked by Russian feet.  When the deal with the devil sours, and these people feel the need to resist, they may find themselves targeted for mass murder in the same way that Russia is trying to commit genocide in Ukraine.

We must not forget that Russia has had global imperial ambitions for a very long time, and has pressed these ambitions aggressively even though Russia has nothing of substance to offer the rest of the world.  Consider the murderous narcissism of Vladimir Putin and of Aleksandr Dugin, and ask yourselves whether you want to be made into the rungs of their hierarchy.  If being even a Russian citizen is such a painful thing, how much worse would it be to be turned into a Russian subject?  Those who attempt to make deals with the devil eventually become the victims of the devil.

Russia must be driven completely out of Ukraine.  That means that Putin must be denied the chance to turn the war in Ukraine into a waiting game for Russia.  And Russian nationalists must be driven completely from power.  As long as Russia remains unrepentant, Russian power must be destroyed.

A Mistake In The Making

Journalists from every nation are now unanimous in their assessment that Russia is losing the war in Ukraine.  There is overwhelming evidence that this fact is driving Vladimir Putin to severe narcissistic decompensation, with the result that Russia is turning into a bit of Hell on earth under his rule.  Thus Putin is driving an increasing number of Russians to try to flee the country, as he is trying to call up reservists to shore up his sagging invasion.  However, it seems that Russia's neighbors may be making a mistake in their response to the exodus of Russians fleeing the reservist call-up.

Here's my take on things.  First, I despise the Russian "hooray patriots" (ватники) who have supported Russia's desire to Make Itself Great Again by trying to trash the rest of the world.  That means that I despise Vladimir Putin, Aleksandr Dugin, and the lying mouthpieces - both in the East and in the West - who have supported the project of Russian empire.  Moreover, I am not very fond of many Russians whom I have met over the last ten or so years right here in the U.S.A.  Their stuck-up cultural narcissism and monstrous sense of entitlement have been a real turn-off.  

However, not all Russians are like that.  Not all people of Russian descent are stuck-up narcissists.  (And not all non-Russians are saints!)  I am thinking particularly about a trip I took to Seattle in early 2020 (before the COVID-19 restrictions), and how once I arrived there I needed to take public transit to keep an important appointment.  On that morning I had stupidly forgotten to get change, so I got on a Seattle public transit bus with nothing other than a $20 bill.  The bus driver - a white man, a Russian - noticed my discomfiture at discovering that I did not have the appropriate change to pay the fare.  He smiled at me and gave me a bus pass anyway.  I should note that he gave me the pass without my asking, before I had a chance to say anything or make any appeal.  And since I was unfamiliar with Seattle public transit, he even helped me by giving me information about the correct connecting bus so that I could make my appointment. (Believe me, coming back from my appointment, I made sure that I had the right change!)

Sometimes we all need mercy.  Therefore although I am not a citizen of the nations I am about to name, I believe (if I may be so bold as to venture my opinion) that Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and other Eastern European nations should give asylum to those Russians who are fleeing from being drafted into Putin's evil little war.  Not only will such a move further weaken the Russian invasion effort, but it is the right thing to do.  As the Good Book says, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."  I think the present refusal of these nations to grant asylum is a mistake.

I would also say that the West must not allow itself to be bullied by Russian threats even if Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons.  Putin must be made to see that the choice he offers us is hell via nuclear weapons vs. hell via Putin's rule.  We should propose a third option: Putin either repents or he eliminates himself.  That way he'll be no trouble to anyone else.

Equity That Can't Be Rescued

It has been now over six and a half months since the start of Russia's attempted seizure of Ukraine, a seizure which Russian president Vladimir Putin schizophrenically described as "a special military operation to remove Nazis." During these past months it has been Russia which has been revealed to be the fascist thug and it has been Ukraine which has been revealed to be the nation of decency occupying the moral high ground.  It has also been revealed that the "mighty" Russian military can be and is in fact being torn to pieces by its intended victims.

It is now being revealed that the seemingly invincible machinery of political conquest which Putin's Russia has built up over the last two decades is unraveling like a badly knitted sweater attacked by a pack of kittens.  That machinery included the sort of dirty tricks which Russia used in 2016 to install Donald Chump in the White House.  (My, how high you all seemed to be riding back then!)  The machinery also included the use of the Russian military as a tool of terror to frighten nations into the Russian orbit.  The motivation for the building of that machinery was the Russian desire to re-establish Russia as the center of empire, an incarnation of the "Third Rome" which would have narcissistically lorded itself over all the other peoples of earth.  

The Russian empire-building exercise has come off the rails in Ukraine.  News reports over the last week have described how the Russian military has lost thousands of square miles of recently conquered Ukrainian territory, and how the Russian military is close to collapse under the weight of fierce Ukrainian counterattacks.  Yet Putin refuses to surrender to reality.  His experiment in empire-building is now a money pit - like a badly built car or termite-eaten house - yet he refuses to come to the point where he chooses to cut his losses and abandon his "investment".  If Putin persists in his war to the point where all his means of coercive force are destroyed, how will he manage to retain his grip on his own population?

You Won't Mind Your Own Business, So Why Are You Trying To Mind Mine?

I have a post in the works which will address the attempts by the American Religious Right to establish a white supremacist theocracy in the U.S.  Hint: I have reason to believe that these attempts are about to fail spectacularly.  But I don't have time to write that post just yet.  (Entrepreneurs need to learn sometimes to say no to new work!)  So today's post will not be on that subject.  Today's post will also be short.

I have written in this blog about the ecological devastation being wrought on the Russian landscape under the reign of Vladimir Putin.  Specifically, I have written about the spectacularly widespread Russian wildfires of 2020 and 2021.  It should not be surprising therefore to learn that the Russian wildfire season of 2022 has started off with a bang.  (See this, this, and this for instance.)  According to a Wikipedia article on the subject, 

"The 2022 Siberian wildfires are a series of ongoing wildfires in Siberia, Russia that began in Siberia in early May 2022. Fires are concentrated in the Krasnoyarsk, Altai, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Omsk, Kurgan regions, Khakassia and Sakha republics. The total area of ​​fires, as of 15 May, is about 20 thousand hectares, and since the beginning of 2022 - more than 100 thousand hectares."

The Wikipedia article also has a map which illustrates how much of the Russian landscape has been plagued by the fires this year.  (Click on this link to see or download the map.)  From this map we can see that nearly a third of the Russian land mass was affected by wildfires as of May.  Russian president Vladimir Putin called for aggressive action to deal with the wildfires, but it should be obvious that his statements are merely a blowing of useless smoke.  For the track record of the Russian government from at least as far back as 2019 shows a singular lack of willingness to effectively deal with the wildfire threat.  And by spending so many Russian resources in trying to take over other people's countries, Putin has left very little to competently manage the affairs of his own country.  Score another point for that thieving little man in his bunker and his piece-of-garbage regime.  This is the man who was worshiped by an idiot named Donald John Trump.

Russia Must Not Be Allowed To Win

The Russian invasion of Ukraine seems to have evolved into a war of attrition.  On the one hand is Putin's Russia, the revanchist monster which has thrown staggering amounts of men and materiel into its attempt to conquer a sovereign and free nation.  Many of these men have been killed and wounded, and much of the materiel has been destroyed.  Yet Russia still has men and materiel to blow on its stupid and evil endeavor.  On the other hand is Ukraine, a small nation which Putin had hoped to make into the first appetizer in his meal of devouring Europe (and after that, the world).  Ukraine has done mighty deeds in resisting the Russian monster, but the people of Ukraine are worn down by weeks of unrestrained war and an onslaught of crimes against humanity which have been perpetrated by Russia.

Russia must be taught that crime does not pay.  Russia must instead pay an unbearable price for its attempt to take over the world.  Therefore, the West must do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia loses completely and decisively in Ukraine.  The West must furthermore destroy Russian power so that Russia never again tries to exalt itself above the rest of the world in order to build a global empire.

The Boil That Must Be Lanced

The Russian invasion of Ukraine which began in late February is now in the midst of its fourth month.  This invasion is not some isolated sudden manifestation of evil, but rather merely the sharpest and most obvious sign of an ongoing, historical evil.  It is the manifestation of the deep-seated evil of Russian national narcissism.  The invasion has been accompanied by verbal threats made by Russia against others of its neighbors, including Poland, because these other nations are building up their defenses to prevent themselves from being invaded by Russia.  These threats, along with the invasion and all the Russian efforts before the invasion to subvert the governments of free and sovereign nations, are the manifestation of Russia's contempt for the entire non-Russian world, the manifestation of Russia's desire to be some sort of "Third Rome" that rules the entire earth and makes Russia great by trashing everyone else.

So we who are not Russian and who do not want to be turned into Russian subjects are once again confronted with the necessity of the task before us.  And we must not look at the world - or at Russia - through the rose-colored glasses of wish-fulfillment fantasy.  Rather, we must face our task with clear-eyed, hard-edged realism.  

We must not become enamored of the idea of "peace through negotiations."  Negotiations only work with people who have "better angels" that we can appeal to.  Putin's Russia has no "better angels."

We must face the fact that our task is to completely shatter present-day Russian power. 

We must create a situation in which Russia's ability to project either hard power or soft power (including cultural power) is annulled.  

Our efforts must continue without slacking until our goal is achieved.

And our goal must be pursued through the evolution of a strategy which combines a number of indirect approaches to cut off Russian power.  (Think of both Basil Liddell-Hart and Salvor Hardin.)  Here I want to re-emphasize the fact that a key component of our strategy must be to eliminate Western economic dependence on Russia as much as possible.  It is heartening to see that both Europe and the United States have begun to cut themselves off from dependence on Russian oil and gas.  This has brought a period of some pain and suffering in both Europe and the U.S.; however, it is opening up opportunities to create a sustainable global zero-carbon economy.  It is interesting that the emergence of such an economy will occur at the same time that Russia is demonstrating its own unwillingness to manage its own internal ecological affairs.  I fully expect that this year, while Putin continues to spend tens of millions of rubles on his futile war, he will fail to spend as much as a dime on preventing the sort of devastating Arctic wildfires that have burned in Russia over the last several years.  Putin's regime is a piece of garbage.

Lastly, our strategy must continue without wavering until the moment when the Russian people overthrow their megalomaniac, kleptocratic leaders and install a government that is willing to live in peace with the rest of humanity.

The Antidote To The Strongman Is Responsibility

Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has netted some impressive losses for Russia.  Among those losses are up to 17,000 Russian troops killed, over 40,000 Russian casualties (including soldiers who have been wounded, but not killed), pariah status among the nations of the world, crippling economic consequences, and a series of singular losses on the propaganda front.  But over the last week and a half, Russia has mounted a ferocious cyber-counterattack in order to retake the initiative in the information war.  So we have many, many "news" sites aligned with the Far Right (and blogs by Putin trolls who pretend to be, among other things, morbidly obese housewives) which are criticizing President Biden as weak or incompetent, or accusing Ukraine of developing bioweapons, or who are repeating the tired old Russian talking point that Russia's attack of Ukraine was designed to eliminate a potential "threat to Russia" either from NATO - which has not attacked Russia at all - or from the presence of independent, happy, self-reliant people on Russia's doorstep.  (In other words, "YOUR freedom is a threat to ME!")

The most recent weapon to be deployed in this information war is the threat of the "chaos" that may engulf the world if Russia is not allowed to get its way.  So there are Russian mouthpieces spouting threats of the end of the world, or the threat of nuclear war, or the threat of widespread economic breakdown as a result of the West's resistance against the imperial ambitions of Putin.  To be sure, there is some substance to those threats.  But that substance consists of the weaknesses of position which we in the West have created for ourselves as a result of allowing ourselves to become dependent on Russia for a number of the resources needed in our modern industrial economies.  We knew for decades that in depending on Russia for things like grain, oil, and fertilizer, we were relying on a regime that despises democracy and human rights, a regime that would use our dependence as a tool to try to subjugate us.  Putin's Russia would now try to persuade us that we have only the stark choice between the kind of "peace" that comes from capitulating to Putin versus starvation and shortage.  That, however, is false.

We have also known since the 1970's that the resource base of the societies and economies of the Global North would one day decline to the point where we would have to devise new ways of living - ways that are more suited to a world of limits.  Recognizing those limits is not the end of the world, and we don't need to have a meltdown when faced with the need to make necessary adjustments.  However, a meltdown is just what many of us have had (or, to use a British expression, too many of us have thrown a wobbly) whenever the need to learn to live within limits has been mentioned.  Our tantrums are provoked at the thought that our lives, our ambitions, our dreams, our cravings might to be subject to limits.  This is especially true of the privileged upper-middle-class members of the dominant culture.  And this leads to a danger.  For although we know, deep down, that everyone on earth will have to face a world of limits, the danger is that we will choose to believe strongmen and populists who promise us otherwise - men who promise that by waving a magic wand they and they alone can bring back the days of past glory if only we give ourselves entirely to the wishes of these men.  The experience of those of us who lived through the Trump years or through the disaster of post-Brexit Britain should be enough to teach us otherwise, but as Abe Lincoln once said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time..."

The antidote to the false promise of the strongman and the populist is a willingness to accept the world as it is - that is, to make peace with reality - and to figure out the best and most moral way of living within the reality into which we have been placed.  Grab a clue: the present time of shortages and high prices was coming even without the West's sanctions against Russia.  Didn't anyone notice the shortages of 2020 or how gas prices were rising throughout all of 2021?  

P.S. I have at least three four blog posts in the oven.  Over the next month I hope to publish them.  One post will be an essay on the subject of populist leaders and how the pedagogy of the oppressed is designed to liberate the oppressed from the lies of the populist by teaching the oppressed to take personal and collective responsibility for our own lives.  (Today's post is a sneak preview.)  The second post will deal with the threat which false charity poses to genuine liberation.  The third post will be about programming search engines.  The fourth post will be a brief sketch of my experiences as a small business owner, as well as the things that moved me to pursue entrepreneurship.  Stay tuned.

How to Help Ukraine

It is heartening to see the outpouring of sympathy for the people of Ukraine from many of the people of the West.  However, we must beware of Russian attempts to hijack and mislead those who want to provide material support to the people of Ukraine at this time.  Yesterday, for instance, I received a spam donations request message from a sender who spoofed the email address of a law firm in northern California.  I am not a particularly trusting type nowadays, so I called the law firm in question and found out that the email message was indeed fake.

For this reason I am glad that the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail has published an article listing a number of legitimate organizations to which we can donate in order to help the Ukrainian victims of Russian military aggression.  The link to that article is here.  The article also has information describing steps we can take to protect ourselves from Russian cyberattacks, particularly those that come via spam or phishing emails.

The Export of Misery

So...Russia has finally decided to go through with their invasion of Ukraine.  This is Russia's punishment of Ukraine for being Ukraine and not Russia - the revenge wrought by Russia for the intolerable narcissistic injury suffered by the Russians in their encounter with a people that has chosen its own separate identity.  Isn't that the way it always is with narcissists?  Their declaration is always, "You must die because you refuse to be an extension of me!"

God damn Putin's Russia.  And God damn Vladimir Putin, Alexandr Dugin, and the whole apparatus of which they are part.  God damn the Russian leadership's division of the world into zones of conquest arrogantly and presumptuously crisscrossed by Russian "red lines."

There is one silver lining in this present cloud - namely, that it has become blindingly obvious what sort of nation Russia has become and what sort of leadership it now has.  The advantage of stealth possessed by wolves successfully camouflaged in sheep's clothing disappears once the sheep costumes have been abandoned.  But there is also a danger - namely the danger that the depredation of the wolf will both continue and expand by means of a lack of moral courage of the sheep, particularly of the bellwethers, the rams of the flock.  This is what almost happened in the late 1930's when Adolf Hitler chose to play a game remarkably similar to the game now being played by Vladimir Putin.  In this re-run of that earlier game, Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson's voice becomes merely a more rabid repeat of the sympathies expressed by Charles Lindbergh toward the Nazi party.  And as for the bellwethers - will the hard necessity of resistance be obfuscated by them as it was by Neville Chamberlain?  That is, will the West lull itself back to sleep with half-measures rather than facing the hard necessities - both moral and intellectual - of successful resistance, of successful defense of a separate identity that one can call one's own, of successful removal of a tyrannical threat?  In the days to come, it won't be good enough merely to say, "I tried."

A further note: many, many ordinary rank-and-file Russians have now begun to make their voices heard by standing against Putin and his narcissistic little war.  They themselves have stated boldly that they want to craft a separate identity of decency and morality for themselves.  They are rejecting the identity of "Putin's Russia."  Pray for them - many of them are now being arrested by Putin's apparatus of goons.  Speaking as I have of wolves in an earlier paragraph, I say now that Putin is expertly acting the part of a son of a dog.