Abstract: Putin is going to war for exactly the exact same socio-economic reason as Adolf Hitler: total failure. So he will not stop, until all is consummated.
Putin’s plutocratic society has turned into a dictatorship. His economy, weakened by militarization and corruption, is failing. That decay is on a collision course with his self-admitted personal addiction to power. A difference with Hitler: oil and gas (Russia is the first producer, with the USA; Hitler had none and depended upon American and Russian oil until 1941). Faced with fascism again, having learned a bit from history, with higher stakes, this time the so called “democracies” are rallying in a more timely manner.
In September 1939, France attacked Hitler to help Poland. Alone, France was, and condemned by the presidency and Congress of the USA. This time, it’s completely different. The USA is on the frontlines, joining an increasingly serious NATO. France is sending to Poland and the Baltic republics one hundred of her lethal, nuclear capable Rafales active stealth jets:
Serious Business: Rafale Carrying Six Beyond Visual Range Infra Red Missiles &, On Its Belly A 300 Kiloton H Bomb Capable Of Making 600 Kilometers In 8 Minutes. Sent To Poland.
Both with the European Union, and NATO, attack against one is attack against all. Taken literally Putin has said he wanted to reconstitute the Czars’ evil empire. Submitting to Putin, means, for starters, sending people to be abused in concentration camps for homosexuality, opinions, and insulting the Church. Pluto’s reign: even Putin’s generals are billionaires.
[I would suggest that the USA sent anti-ballistic missile ships, in the Baltic, as the Kremlin has made nuclear threats from its occupied territory around the ancient German city of Konigsberg.]
***
SOCIALIST WARNING TO PLUTO PUTIN:
The French Republic is controlled by the Socialist Party, and, officially, 57% of its GDP is state (although an economist on this site, D. Deux said the real number is lower). France can hardly be called a Wall Street, or NATO puppet.
100 French supersonic active stealth fighter-bombers Rafales are deploying in Poland and the Baltics, some a few dozen miles from Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave. What’s Kaliningrad? The ancient East Prussia. Another territory invaded by the Kremlin, and declared to be Russian. Some of the Baltics have been tortured and nearly exterminated by Russia for the last 250 years. Then, after ethnic cleansing, the Czars moved in Russians (many as recently as after WWII, under Czar Stalin). Those very same Russians whose descendants now Putin wants to save so much.
The Rafales carry the active stealth system “Spectre”. Basically Spectre makes anti-noise, with a precision of less than one degree on the source. That allows to jam Very High Frequency radar that renders even stealth planes like the future USA Strike Fighter, the F35, “Lightning II, plainly visible.
Active stealth Rafales can carry a standoff missile carrying a 300 kilotonnes (of TNT) thermonuclear warhead. That’s twenty times Hiroshima. The missile is propelled by a French invention patented in 1908 (Lorin), that nearly flew as a fighter in 1940, before flying in 1947, the RAMjet. The RAMjet gives the missile a 600 kilometers range above Mach 3 (because it carries only fuel: the RAM breathes air).
(By comparison the bomber part of the arsenal of the USA consists of subsonic planes carrying obsolete subsonic cruise missiles of H bomb power at most 150 kt.)
Britain also regrets to have only strategic nuclear submarines as a deterrent (which the Scottish Independence Party wants to eliminate, presumably to switch allegiance to Putin). As Russia has threatened to use H bombs on the battlefield, and based some in occupied “Kaliningrad”, between Lithuania and Poland, it’s good to be able to reply tit for tat. Besides, Rafales could certainly land on Red Square…
Even Socialist France is warning Putin.
***
WAR PHILOSOPHY:
As I have argued, history is basically a compendium of ineluctable complexities, avoidable conspiracies, and ultimate wars. In particular, history is not made by pacifists inasmuch as by war. See: “War Makes History”.
There are basically two types of war: bad guys against bad guys, and bad guys, against good guys. Wars of good guys against good guys are very rare (see Note1).
A sure way to have a country led by bad guys is to make it a plutocracy. In Putin’s realm, even the top generals are wealthy plutocrats. Actually every whom Putin calls a “friend” is a multimillionaire, or multibillionaire, in the West alone. Putin has invaded now three countries, and made clear he was not going to stop there.
The enormity of what happened has not been grasped yet, just because it’s too enormous, emotionally speaking. Such a thing, a major power using military force to annex territory, did not occur since 1938-1940 (when Hitler annexed several countries and pieces thereof). Even under Stalin, countries were invaded, and controlled, but Stalin did not formally annex them. Far from annexing Ukraine, actually, Stalin gave Ukraine a seat at the United Nations, and other powers (which now Putin is busy stealing, making him, in that precise sense, worse than Stalin himself! Quite a feat).
***
PUTIN’S INVASION EXCUSE:
I argue that, although Putin really wants to terrorize the world with his military, and enjoys the power, his true motivation is to use his aggressive drive to hide a much less savory reality of his gigantic kingdom. But, before this, what is Putin’s official reasoning, officially a regression from concessions made by Stalin himself?
The unfolding invasion doctrine exposed by Putin, is a faithful duplicate of that of Hitler in the 1930s Hitler said: ‘invade wherever there are “threatened” “Germans”, and evoke the splendor of reconstituting the “Grosse Reich”, to protect “German” minorities. Putin says exactly the same except replacing “German” by “Russian”, and “Grosse Reich” by “the Big Country”.
As the New York Times put it, April 18, 2014 (with a few additions of mine between brackets []):
“[NEW RUSSIA] was conquered in the late 18th century by Catherine the Great, who installed [one of her many lovers, co-conspirators, and co-murderers in the assassination of Catherine’s husband, the Czar] Prince Grigory Potemkin to lead the colonization of the lands.
The prince earned fame as the architect of the Potemkin village, a town of brightly painted facades and happy people erected to deceive visiting officials and dignitaries. Critics have accused Mr. Putin of employing a similar sleight of hand in the invasion of Crimea and the supposedly spontaneous pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine.
On Thursday, Mr. Putin repeated his assertion that he felt an obligation to protect ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, where they are a large minority of the population. “We must do everything to help these people to protect their rights and independently determine their own destiny,” he said.
“The question is to ensure the rights and interests of the Russian southeast,” he added. “It’s New Russia. Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Odessa were not part of Ukraine in czarist times; they were transferred in 1920. Why? God knows. Then, for various reasons, these areas were gone, and the people stayed there. We need to encourage them to find a solution.”
What Putin is saying is that the empire of the Czars ought to be reconstituted, as it existed in the Nineteenth Century. That means that, among other places, Poland ought to be annexed (Poland was part of the empire of the Czars in the 19C).
IF ANYTHING, WHAT PUTIN SAYS OUGHT TO BE TAKEN MORE SERIOUSLY THAN HITLER:
Yes, it’s enormous. Yes, Putin went off the deep end. Yet, remember this: it’s because people did not read Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini or Hitler literally, that they got surprised by the resulting holocausts, later.
Once again, several of mechanisms launched by Putin are exactly the same as with the ones the Nazi dictator used. Hitler was surrounded by a cloud of plutocrats (many from the USA and Great Britain). Plutocrats made Hitler feel all powerful, and made him believe that so great was plutocratic power (kratos), that they would keep the Western democracies impotent, and that, never, ever, Britain and the USA would align themselves behind the French Republic in her determined opposition to Nazism.
WHY HITLER COMMITTED TO A WAR HE WAS (NEARLY) SURE TO LOSE:
[The relevance to Putin, is that, at first sight, Putin is sure to lose, especially if he conquers all of Ukraine. Putin is acting from the same political delusion, and economic necessity as Hitler.]
So Hitler was sure that the “democracies” would once again surrender, and do whatever he wanted. However, he got extremely surprised by the signing of a defense treaty between Poland and Britain (France had signed a similar one 6 months earlier… with Britain in the appendix). Hitler tried a few last tricks, and differed the invasion of Poland by a few days.
However as Paul Schmidt, a translator of the Reich’s foreign ministry relates (See Note 3 for an error in the link!): On Sunday September 3, 1939, at 9am, Berlin time:
“I then took the [British] ultimatum to the Chancellery, where everyone was anxiously awaiting me. Most of the members of the Cabinet and the leading men of the Party were collected in the room next to Hitler’s office. There was something of a crush and I had difficulty in getting through to Hitler.
When I entered the next room Hitler was sitting at his desk and Ribbentrop stood by the window. Both looked up expectantly as I came in. I stopped at some distance from Hitler’s desk, and then slowly translated the British Government’s ultimatum.
[This is the text of the British Ultimatum: ‘More than twenty-four hours have elapsed since an immediate reply was requested to the warning of September 1st, and since then the attacks on Poland have been intensified. If His Majesty’s Government has not received satisfactory assurances of the cessation of all aggressive action against Poland, and the withdrawal of German troops from that country, by 11 o’clock British Summer Time, from that time a state of war will exist between Great Britain and Germany.’]
Paul Schmidt pursues:
“When I finished, there was complete silence.
Hitler sat immobile, gazing before him. He was not at a loss, as was afterwards stated, nor did he rage as others allege. He sat completely silent and unmoving.
After an interval which seemed an age, he turned to Ribbentrop, who had remained standing by the window. ‘What now?’ asked Hitler with a savage look, as though implying that his Foreign Minister had misled him about England’s probable reaction. Ribbentrop answered quietly: ‘I assume that the French will hand in a similar ultimatum within the hour.’
[Patrice’s remark: Hitler’s foreign minister and former Ambassador and conspirator to London, Joachim von Ribbentrop, had assured him repeatedly that neither Britain nor France would honor their commitments to Poland.]
Paul Schmidt pursues:
“As my duty was now performed, I withdrew. To those in the anteroom pressing round me I said: ‘The English have just handed us an ultimatum. In two hours a state of war will exist between England and Germany.’ In the anteroom, too, this news was followed by complete silence.
Goering turned to me and said: ‘If we lose this war, then God have mercy on us!’ Goebbels stood in a corner, downcast and self-absorbed. Everywhere in the room I saw looks of grave concern, even amongst the lesser Party people.”
Hitler was allied with the Kremlin, which promptly invaded Poland, even though 45 French divisions attacked Hitler’s “Westwall” in the West: “Poland never will rise again in the form of the Versailles treaty. That is guaranteed not only by Germany, but also … Russia.” (Hitler , public speech in Dantzig, now Gdansk, end September 1939.)
***
WHY PUTIN IS INVADING:
What is going on with Putin? Why is he so crazy? Why does he risk a widening war?
Well, the answer is simple: because he has long been at war, and has long been losing it so well that even him, in spite of his stupidity, has noticed it. Like a gambler on a losing streak, he puts more on the table. Wait, some will say: ”Is Putin not acquiring territory? How can you say he is losing”.
Once again, Adolf Hitler’s case comes to our rescue to understand the generality of the situation.
In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt, alarmed by Hitler’s annexations sent a telegram to the German “Chancellor-President” inquiring: “Are you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory of the following independent nations?” Roosevelt listed 31 nations including Poland, the Baltic States, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Britain.
Hitler gave his answer to the Reichstag, assuring ‘Herr Roosevelt’ that Germany only had peaceful intentions toward its neighbors. Germany, Hitler declared, “had not thought of proceeding in any way against Poland.”
Putin, Lavrov, and company have been duplicating those comments. And duplicating the brazen lying pattern of Hitler: after claiming there was an insurrection in Crimea, Putin coolly, and publicly, admitted that his forces did it all, “acting very professionally”. In other words, Putin lies so much, he believes that everybody has got to tolerate his constant lying, and he does not mind broadcasting it. That, too is reminiscent of Hitler, who did not hesitate to say, and write, publicly, that the bigger the lie, the better. See “Mediating Pluto”.
As with Hitler, but hopefully faster this time, the “democracies” are going to get tired of the lies.
PUTIN & HITLER: WORLD WAR WANTED TO HIDE ECONOMIC FAILURE:
The truth was just the opposite. Starting in May 1939, the president of Germany gave a whole series of conferences to his top generals stating that war was unavoidable, because the German economy, far from flourishing, was breaking down.
What was going on? Germany had become a full blown plutocracy, corrupt through and through, insuring immense economic inefficiency.
Same for Putin’s Russia. Remember the Olympic games in Sochi, by far the most expensive, ever, in history, 50 billion dollars, most of the money going top plutocrats around Putin (some now struck by sanctions)?
Germany also was making a huge effort of militarization. That, too, unbalanced the economy completely. Putin is duplicating that. While NATO is disarming, Putin announced a complete rearmament with completely new weapons, including new mobile nuclear missiles.
So, of course, Putin’s economy is breaking down. The nominal GDP of Russia is significantly smaller than Italy, and is around 1.5 trillion dollars (less, smaller than California’s).
Hitler again, in his third and final conference to his top generals in August 1939:
“Our economic situation is such that we cannot hold out more than a few years. Göring can confirm this. We have no other choice. We must act,” Hitler said. Thus far, all of Germany’s territorial gains had come as a result of “political bluff” but it was now necessary to utilize Germany’s “military machine.”
“I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war. Never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war it is not right that matters but victory.”
In the latest developments, May 1, the Russian Foreign ministry condemned the Ukrainian national elections and referendum scheduled for May 25. Chancellor Merkel called Putin to ask him to say something about freeing observers of the 57 nation strong Organization or Security and Cooperation in Europe held by terrorists in South East Ukraine. Putin retorted by requesting the withdrawal of Ukrainian army from South east Ukraine (as if that was within the powers of Merkel to order around the Ukrainian army!)
Heil Putin!
BABY VLADIMIR WALKS THE VALLEY OF DEATH:
I am of courseunfair when I compare Putin to Hitler. Putin himself would to point out that he, and Hitler, used the methods Catherine The Great used to extend her borders all the way to the west. That, is west of Warsaw. Catherine would send spies and agents provocateurs, hard picked Russophiles, who would cause problems, and then what we call now Special Forces. At this point she would scream Russians are being threatened, and send her army, using the Targowican confederation. She used that method also throughout the “New Russia” which Putin mentioned repeatedly.
The entire idea of the European Union is unanimity in all important decisions, respect of the dozens, if not hundreds, of cultures and civilizations of the Old Continent. It’s the exact opposite of the spirit that has been festering in the Kremlin, ever since it exists. It’s a shock of civilizations against a predation that predates civilization.
“They say the greatest addiction is to power,” Vladimir Putin. Well, there is more than that, baby Vladimir, with your nuclear toys. As Salvador Dali pointed out, Hitler started World War Two, just because he wanted to lose it… Unbeknownst to himself!
Why? There is a streak of self-destruction in the genus Homo. By destroying the latter, just so, evolution made it possible for the environment to live another day. Putin may feel he is channeling Ivan the Terrible, and he will create his “Big Country” (not realizing that his country is 42 times California in area already, although Russia has a smaller GDP than this state of the USA).
But all what Putin is doing is walking up the valley of death, searching for the oldest instinct, destruction of the fiercest predator, himself. Evolution at its best, culling the obsolete. Too bad millions of lives are at stake.
Meanwhile all will turn out good, as long as the Occident remembers that history it its master, and collapse, its friend.
Patrice Aymé
***
Note 0: Why did Hitler refer his generals to Goering’s assessment of the Nazi economy? Hermann Goering was an authentic hero of the World War One, whereas Hitler had been only a courageous, but lowly caporal in WWI.
Generals took a flying ace such as Goering seriously. Goering replaced Von Richtoffen at the head of his top squadron, after the latter’s demise. Moreover, the father of Goering had made Namibia safe for Germans, by exterminating the locals in a deliberate holocaust-man hunt.
So the Nazi German military officers (such as Rommel) could only venerate Goering. The most serious generals wanted Hitler dead. But that was easier said than done. When the generals turned to Anglo-American help to do so, they were betrayed.
Note1: the Swiss Civil War of 1847 is a rare example of good guys against good guys; yet, even in this case, the ones who won were the progressives federalists, and could be viewed as good guys against the staunch Catholic conservatives! Moreover, less than 150 soldiers got killed. A better example of good guys on good guys would be the much more bloody French Commune of 1871, when both French sides had good points, and no choice, as the Prussian imperial army was pulling the strings, material or emotional, on both sides.
Note 2: On the obsolescence of USA bombers: manufactured between 1979 and 1990, the SUBSONIC cruise missile’s W-80 warhead is deployed aboard 85 non-stealthy Air Force B-52 bombers to give the 1960s-era planes an ability to launch nuclear weapons without having to enter heavily defended airspace. The warhead has a variable explosive power of 5 to 150 kilotons, or roughly one-third to 10 times the yield of the nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima. It’s carried by 1980s-vintage Air Launched Cruise Missile.
Note 3: I gave the link on Paul Schmidt because it was in English. However it contains a grievous mistake: it claims France joined Britain in supporting Poland. However, in truth, it was the other way around: Britain was added in the fine print of the addendum of the Franco-Polish Treaty. And the truth is, that Britain was highly supportive of Hitler until 1936. In 1940, the ex British king, who was a Nazi, transmitted the French plans to his friend Adolf Hitler. Although he had been fired for being pro-Nazi, and wanting to marry a notorious Nazi spy, Edward VII had been made Inspector General of the British Forces, and spent a month studying the French defenses.
Tags: Catherine The Great, France, Hitler, Invasion, Poland, Putin, Rafale, Russia, Thermonuclear Bombs, Ukraine, war, Warning
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 
May 2, 2014 at 12:01 am |
I would hope there is no war because if the West is intending to fire small thermonuclear bombs, which I believe they will, Russia has no option but to turn the West into an ash heap, and it can.
As an aside, I disagree that Hitler’s loss was inevitable, except in the situation where Hitler and Goering were supreme commanders. Both were the allies best Generals!
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May 2, 2014 at 1:22 am |
The offensive decided by Hitler in May 1940 was a crazy plan due to a fear, from a plane crash, that the initial plan (which the French had anticipated) had fallen in Allies’ hands.
In war games replayed hundreds of times since 1945, the Nazi offensive of May 1940 nearly always fail (same for the successful Midway defense). So there was lots of bad luck and astoundingly bad decisions in May 1940. The hostility of the USA did the rest (it recognized the Vichy regime in a rush, before Churchill-De Gaulle could make their unification plan).
Hope away. It’s not your decision, it’s Putin. And he has already started war. He is like a rat in a box. Angry and vicious. The West does not intent to fire “small” thermonuclear weapons (300 kt is not small: detonated above the Kremlin, it would kill at least a million people). Why? Because the West has battlefield superiority. It is the Putinists who have DECLARED that they will use battlefields nukes. To believe the West intents to use battlefields nukes is a piece of propaganda I have not seen even the Putinists use.
Putin has threatened to use nukes against Poland for just installing a few defense missiles. I propose to move them in right away, on the theory that, the more one waits with Hitler, the worse it gets. Just use Aegis cruisers with block 3 general interceptor missiles.
PA
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May 2, 2014 at 4:13 am |
[Sent to RSN, after another (paid?) pro-Putin piece there.]
Putin mentioned he wanted to establish “New Russia”. Putin condemned the May 25 Ukrainian presidential election and referendum. Putin requested the evacuation of East Ukraine… by the Ukrainian army. Putin refused to condemn the kidnapping of observers of the 57 nations OSCE by his goons. Enough.
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May 2, 2014 at 1:04 pm |
I clicked the ‘Like’ button in recognition of the depth of historical information presented. Not because I liked the message. As someone who was born in London towards the end of WWII, I find my stomach turning at the thought of coming to the Autumn of my life with another global conflict.
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May 2, 2014 at 2:00 pm |
Well, thanks Paul! I appreciate the “likes” a lot, as I get so few (I was told it’s not easy to give them; myself, with an older computer, I was unable to “like” your work for years.)
I think it’s important to understand what happened with WWI and WWII. The real history, how events really moved. There is not so much a conflict than one man. In the 1930s, it was Hitler, now it’s Putin. When a dictator and his accomplices have gone too far, they cannot stop. That’s why I am advocating to strike early and hard.
If the UK and the USA had been unambiguous early in 1938, in saying, say, that they supported the French Republic no matter what, Hitler’s generals, headed by Beck would have made the coup (that they had shown to the Anglo-Americans they were preparing), and nobody would even remember Hitler’s name today.
I am a mountain climber, and still do pretty dangerous sports, so stomach turning, from my point of view, is the essence of life. After all, we get chopped, one day or another, and may as well come and go in style.
In any case the ongoing assault against the biosphere is arguably the greatest conflict that ever was.
PA
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May 2, 2014 at 8:19 pm |
I understand your position. Like to think of myself as a peaceful sort but readily recall the saying that the only thing required for evil to win is for good men to do nothing. So I, too, hope the West’s reaction will be strong and clear.
Re dangerous sports, once was taken climbing as a young man and it put me off for life! So over the years have stuck to safer pastimes such as gliding (sailplaning), solo ocean sailing, scuba diving and caving! 😉
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May 2, 2014 at 10:10 pm |
Climbing is indeed dangerous: I lost my best friends that way, typically to avalanches (I still go in the snow, solo, though… Just try to be very very careful, an easier thing now with cell phones…)
Indeed we all like to think high of ourselves, but we should not hesitate to think it as we see it.
Some of your sports don’t seem safe… I know from experience that diving is very dangerous.
PA
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May 3, 2014 at 12:17 pm |
Paul, I got my glider pilot license at 59! I love it but can’t afford it.
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May 6, 2014 at 12:04 am
Just seen your reply! Sorry for not replying earlier. Where did you get your gliding license? (Want to reply via an email to me – full name at gmail – would love to chat gliding! )
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May 6, 2014 at 5:23 am
Watch for controlled flight into terrain, though…
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May 2, 2014 at 2:40 pm |
I hope you are wrong. Yet I take very seriously what you are saying. I claim regime that is evil in its substance has historically been aggressive to its neighborhood, to legitimate its rule in spite of failure to manage properly the every day life. It is as contrary to a “Good Regime”, that is to busy “to clean the sueige system” to make war. This makes the bad regime much more resultant in decision making and successful in wars. Hitler lost the war only after he had to cope with comparable evil, Stalin.
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May 2, 2014 at 9:44 pm |
Dear Eugen: Sueige”? I did not get that one.
Anyway, one has to understand that this is a process. At some point, things could go too far, and world war could start. It’s not just about Putin’s murky mind. It’s also about the replies he gets to his acts, just as with Hitler.
When Hitler saw the USA was not willing to save the Jews (contrarily to say France, or even England), he saw a big green light for the “final solution”. If the USA has had a different attitude in 1939-1940, Hitler would have been defeated then. Instead the USA encouraged him, so that the “American Century” could rise.
Right now, as I tweeted:
German business leaders could not stop Hitler, by fear of sanctions. Now they can’t stop Putin… by fear of sanctions. History refresh kom?
BTW, the theory of efficiency of dictatorship as you described is in “Mein Kampf”. Hitler got beaten in 1941 because he wasted 6 weeks and some of his best troops fighting Greeks and Brits, to conquer all the way to Crete (and commit there atrocities, never a good publicity).
PA
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May 4, 2014 at 2:08 pm |
Sorry a misprint, i meant “sewage”
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May 3, 2014 at 5:02 am |
Patrice,
This article in SPIEGEL ONLINE (English translation) reinforces your critique of Putin as a post-fascist – and not post-socialist as portrayed.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/speeches-by-russian-president-putin-betray-fascist-inspiration-a-967283.html
Here’s a teaser:
‘And when Putin evokes the myth of Moscow as a “Third Rome,” it is clear he is assigning the Russian people with an historic mission. Responsibility is falling to Russia not only to stop Western decadence at its borders, but also to provide a last bastion for those who had already given up hope in this struggle. But he is also saying that Russia can never yield.
“Death is horrible, isn’t it?” Putin asked viewers at the end of his television appearance. “But no, it appears it may be beautiful if it serves the people: Death for one’s friends, one’s people or for the homeland, to use the modern word.” That’s as fascist as it gets.
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May 3, 2014 at 6:14 am |
Dear Andrej: Very well done article, I agree with it 100%. It’s true, as the author said, that the discrimination against gays is playing a crucial role. Once the scapegoat principle has been legally installed, the sky is the limit.
Death for one’s people (in both sense of the term), is indeed central to fascism.
Putin long threatened and then deployed nuclear missiles in occupied Prussia. That, by itself, is a casus belli.
http://www.euronews.com/2013/12/16/baltic-alarm-over-reports-of-russian-nuclear-missiles-in-kaliningrad/
That nobody saw Putin coming is a mystery. It was obvious 15 years ago. With the Chechen second war, and the offer to provide “hard power” to Europe, while Europe would be a “soft power”.
Once again thanks, keep the good quotes and links coming!
PA
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May 3, 2014 at 10:59 am |
The French Air Force has 54 Rafales. With Marine and training versions, France’s total complement barely exceeds 120.
The number sent to Poland is less than ten (along with several AWACS). A significant gesture, but a gesture.
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May 3, 2014 at 8:12 pm |
OK, some officials said it was 4 now, 100 soon.
Début février 2014, 126 exemplaires de Rafale ont été livrés aux forces armées françaises sur les 180 commandés fermement par les gouvernements français : 39 monoplaces (Rafale M38 en essai en janvier 2013)13, 42 biplaces (Rafale B339 en essai) et 45 monoplaces (Rafale C) pour l’Armée de l’air. Il reste donc 54 Rafale à livrer entre février 2014 et fin 2018.
Avec l’efficacite’ des armes modernes, le nombre est moins un facteur qu’avant. L’armee blindee de Kaddafi fut aneantie a quelques kilometres de Benghazi par moins de deux douzaines de Rafales (en “protection”, brouillant et detruisant les radars) et de vulgaires Mirages 2000 (portant des bombes tres efficaces).
Des Rafales avec SCALPS peuvent aneantir les armes nucleaires de
HitlerPutin en une minute, de la ou ils sont situes.Si on lit Putin, c’est vers la qu’on va.
PA
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May 3, 2014 at 9:34 pm |
Yes, I think that the confusion arose from the fact that the (4, IIUC) Rafales sent to Poland are followed by about 100 support people on the ground – and apparently, the active radar suite is not operational on those 4, likely to avoid exposing it to the Russian attention, during what is essentially, as you noted, posturing.
100 Rafales would be just unthinkable, unless a really hot war had broken, and even then… as a layman who gets his very superficial knowledge of military events through some random specialized online publications, from writers to forums, well, I’m not quite sure today’s France would be able to sustain such an effort.
The decline of actual “Western” military capacities, both relative and objective, is nothing short of worrying, the sole comfort coming from the fact any and all near to medium term threats are even less formidable – Russia has been remilitarizing efficiently under Putin, though, so even if it starts from little, that probably won’t last.
Nukes aside, even though European armed forces as a whole are more than a match for Russia, defensively speaking at the very least, they still remain midgets, compared to their even peacetime potential.
And the leader of the pack, the USA, for all its quite real might, is a bloated, over-costly and severely under-productive leviathan, which has been cruising along thanks to its hype (the US armed forces indeed win all their wars… in Hollywood), and won’t be used any time soon against an enemy who might actually fight back.
Then again, European/Nato armies, what for? To act as spear carriers or suppletives for the USA? If so, one might just as well officialize it, privatize the armed forces, and just rent them as some kind of Blackwater/Xe/Academi/…
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May 3, 2014 at 10:01 pm |
Dear Kevin: I reported what a reporter reported from talking to the French ministry of defence. France would be dumb to send her block III Rafales to Poland (considering what happened in May 1940 with the Mobile Reserve of seven armored divisions headed by general Girault… which was sent to the Netherlands, with catastrophic results.)
By “active radar suite” I guess you mean the AESA radar (that few Rafales have, it’s standard on the F22). Rafales have extremely efficient Beyond Visual Range Infra Red missiles that would probably shot down the F22, well before those could shot their own BVR missiles towards Rafales.
That’s why the USAF refuse to engage Rafales in this unfair fight!… Airbus’ Typhoons have a somewhat similar system, and that’s why they have “Raptor Salad”… More in a separate comment.
I don’t understand your question about what NATO is for.
PA
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May 4, 2014 at 12:52 am |
“I don’t understand your question about what NATO is for.”
Well I do, in the light of recent NATO engagement, way beyond its mandate, in Afghanistan.
With the forced departure of Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, the rationale for a NATO intervention (defense of a member under aggression) disappeared. The US stayed on a self-imposed “country building” mission, a daft neocon idea which NATO had nothing to do with.
NATO forces are there as auxiliaries to a purely US war, made necessary by GWB going AWOL and invading Iraq with troops meant to counter Al Qaeda’s threat.
Thus the comparison with Blackwater mercs is entirely understandable.
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May 4, 2014 at 3:55 am
First the USA… Look I was against the Afghan war, that Carter started in 1979, as I have explained… My parents actually visited Afghanistan several times in the 1970s. The USA got in Afghanistan then to prevent the unsavory triangle of the kingly social-plutocrats there in alliance with the USSR and France to exploit the riches without sharing with Washington (friends of my dad, fellow expert adventurous geologists found underground riches in Afghanistan, including Lithium; that’s why Carter and company struck)…
Fast forward 35 years. This is now. Afghanistan, to my baffled disbelief, has actually been voting. The North guy came ahead of the Patchoun candidate, and nearly got elected on the first pass. that was astounding (he used to know Massoud).
There were 11 candidates. The first two, kept for the second turn, French style, are apparently BOTH for the preservation of the environment, namely of the presence of some army of the USA (making it hopeless for the Taliban).
A longer run rationale in Afghanistan was always to keep a boot in the middle of Central Asia. It’s known as the “Great Game”.
Its opening act, British style, was a disaster: too many Brits sleeping with local women! Or maybe the opening game was 35 centuries ago, when Afghanistan was the superpower of tin (to make bronze).
So this was the past, I was fanatically against some of it, but the future is now. Although I thought the plan of Obambi to stay in Afghanistan was insane (although I could understand its necessity, and so no clear alternative), I now think he may be right (OK, Tyranosopher 100, Obama 1).
Anyway if the new elected potentates in Afghanistan ask the USA to stay…
Note that initially, when NATO told GWB they were coming in, he sent it to hell (just because he could; GWB was more ferocious with NATO than with Putin!)
PA
PA
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May 3, 2014 at 10:31 pm |
AESA:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_electronically_scanned_array
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May 3, 2014 at 12:43 pm |
We don’t get to see the interviews with Putin here in America without having to do a huge amount of search, but I can see how you can come to your psychoanalytic conclusions, when he concludes by glorifying death. He is deranged now, certainly. Perhaps there is a greater (perhaps historically, “epigenetically” induced through previous enslavements) death wish among the Slavs, to re-enslave themselves to the West. The Western banking cabal would love to “help” rebuild Russia after a major war with just oodles of debt, to enslave the Russians just as the Americans and Europeans are enslaved to their banks–and to break up anyone’s (China, are you listening?) notions of a pan-Asian economic zone. So I view this as a war of bad-against-bad, unfortunately.
I continue to believe Putin’s strongest hand, and the least violent outcome, is for him not to invade, to let the West trash the Ukraine and accelerate the toppling of the banks’ dominion over the West through outright bankruptcy–followed by, I hope, reconstitution of the financial system and restoration of democracy to Western republics. So what if Russia and China create a pan-Asian trade zone? It is the fear of this that is driving the Western players of the “Great Game.”
Any use of nukes would be immoral in the extreme. The Japanese were ready to surrender; we didn’t need to use them in WWII. But if you believe the will-to-kill exists in the plutocrats running the world, none of whom or whose kids will fight, then perhaps their desired depopulation will be the result. Unfortunately, Patrice, much of it will be in Europe, so be careful how loudly you bang the drum for nuclear war.
Until either Russia or the West send in heavy armaments, this is a civil war in the Ukraine (with the usual covert involvements on both sides). Let’s keep it that way.
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May 3, 2014 at 3:32 pm |
Benign,
Pease live up to your avatar’s description at least, what kind of racist ‘epigenetic'(???) reasoning have you thrown up about Slavs wanting to be re-enslaved? Did you read your own barbarity, it’s always nice to read sweeping stereotypes that in this case cover the entire continent of Europe (Slavs live from the Northern tip to Southern coast)? While I’m far from tribal and grew up in the West, my Slavic heritage does nothing but provide a very good poetic language to express nuanced ideas (more so then pragmatic English often affords) which seem to not catch on in your primitive world view… If you think a race has a ‘epigenetic’ behavioral disposition why don’t you go help out Putin with his tribal yearnings. Also, if you want to add to discussion, maybe you should do more then regurgitate mainstream news – and we really don’t care what you think Putin should do.
What are you BTW, an exemplary Anglo-Saxon with an ‘epigenetic’ desire to enslave and conquest, exterminate? Stereotypes…
Slavs have been more then slaves for millenia, and ended up with prime real estate in Europe, doesn’t sound like descendents of crushed, self-immolating people. (I’m from Slovenia originally, which we call the sunny side of the Alps, next to Adriatic Sea and Italy… can you think of a better location?) Also, Slovenia’s forests and mountains are 90% intact still, how does your country fare in this regard?
Boring.
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May 3, 2014 at 7:50 pm |
Andrej: To further your comment by an example: the Teutonic Knights had established a crushing Catholic terror state after defeating the original Prussians over a period of like 60 years (the war was total, abominable, with mass roastings, on both sides).
After a few centuries of this, the Poles, by then deprived on Baltic sea access, organized a giant anti-Teutonic/Crusader fanaticism coalition, open to all these who had enough of religious fanaticism. The Polish-Lithuanian army even incorporated (Muslim) Tatar cavalry. The Teutonic Knights were defeated, never to rise again. (After several centuries, though, the Prussian Duchy fell back in its cultural atavism, something telling about the endurance of systems of thoughts and moods…)
Contempt for the Slavs was something that, even the idiotic Adolf Hitler, had to admit, a tad too late, in April 1945, had been a grave error…
PA
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May 3, 2014 at 3:49 pm |
Benign,
Also, if you knew more then textbook history, you’d understand that nukes were dropped on Japan primarily as a heads-up for Stalin to stop his eastern conquest, Japan was very much in its last throes, but like a proud samurai refused to surrender.
See, at least I’m referencing culture that existed in Japan almost up to the war, not digging up Roman history for a character of a whole language family.
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May 3, 2014 at 5:59 pm |
I have wasted quite a bit of time reading Putin. Much of what he says is not distinguishable from Hitler. He claims the West is out to destroy, dismantle his country, and the worst is that the domesticated media around him re-amplify that message, and polls are said to show most Russians believe that.
This was the central mechanism that drove Germans crazy in the 1930s. Nobody was out to destroy Nazi Germany, until Hitler made that the only, final solution. Putin is similarly engaged.
I am afraid a psychological Rubicon has been crossed. By invading two countries with his army, and then annexing those parts, Putin has crossed a red line that EVEN STALIN, never crossed. That line is called war of annexation. Putin is also quoting, FAVORABLY, the Czars all the time, something the Soviets may have thought about, but never said.
It is Putin and his mafiosi who said they will use nukes on the battlefield. They also moved the weapons in the heart of Europe. France does not need to use nukes against Moscow, because of air superiority with conventional weapons (as demonstrated in Libya).
The Japs were not ready to surrender August 6, 1945. Far from it. There were elaborate plans to make an Allied landing hyper expensive, even by using nukes (!!!!!!!!!!!!). Japanese nukes, yes.
The top general tried a coup against the emperor (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) within a week, and then did Hara Kiri. The entire Kamikaze command, 40 planes of it or so, disobeyed the emperor, and disappeared at sea (in unknown circumstances). If the generals had known the USA had just two bombs, they would have kept on going.
PA
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May 3, 2014 at 10:11 pm |
Andrej,
My apologies; my sarcasm got the better of me. I was riffing on our moderator’s suggestion that Putin is actually trying to self-destruct, but it’s an evolutionary adaptation, a ridiculous suggestion that *begs* the question why is anyone following him? Are they all lemmings?
To prove that I am not a racist, note that I extended the argument not only to Slavs but to all of Europe (with moderator as proxy, exhibiting a cavalier attitude toward nukes).
Again: my apologies. I was overly rhetorical. I am a great admirer of Slavic achievements. I do wish that Gorbachev had been able to turn Russian society more toward democracy, however. I think Boris Yeltsin did so much damage to the country that the tendency to revert to the “last good thing” was overwhelming, and Putin is exploiting that.
You are right that, as an American, my sense of history is very different from a European’s. I can look up the “facts,”but we have so many different types of people here, all getting along fairly well, even as our plutocrats exploit us, that it is difficult for me to attach the same emotionality to ethnic differences that exists in Europe. (There is racism the US, but it is currently not causing civil disruption.) We have our differences, and some take them more seriously than others, but we have nothing like the situation in the former Yugoslavia, eastern Ukraine, or even Quebec.
Re: Japan I believe it was immoral to use the bomb because it set a precedent. The Allies would have won. For support that the bomb was not necessary see http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_didnt_beat_japan_nuclear_world_war_ii
If you knew me you would know I do try to live up to my chosen name.
Peace.
benign
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May 3, 2014 at 10:42 pm |
You may view my suggestion that Putin is drawn to self destruction as a butterfly to a flame, “ridiculous”. But it sure applied to Hitler.
Another thing: did you read Putin? Putin is suggesting that the West is trying to DESTROY Russia.
Is that a protest, or something else? On the face of it, it’s a call to the destruction of Russia, in the guise of denouncing it. OK, Putin himself does not call for the destruction of Russia, he calls for it as a real possibility. Same as Hitler in the 1930s with Germany.
How do you interpret that? If I went to the police, and told them I am buying a whole new set of weapons, because my “Partner” is trying to destroy me, so I had to invade Crimea (yes, Putin said that) how would the police interpret this?
Obviously, the police would question my sanity, and wonder how dangerous I am. Now, if I did this insistently, would that be just sheer madness, or would one have to add a twinge of self destruction?
(Partner is the word the plutocratic leadership of Russia uses about the West, as if we wanted to partner with obvious mafiosi!)
You call my psychologically subtle suggestion “ridiculous”. Maybe you are not as benign as you think (as Andrej suggested). I sure would be ashamed to view myself as “benign”. But that’s just me. I am not as deluded as Socrates. I make a point of honor not to be.
PA
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May 8, 2014 at 3:39 pm |
Benign,
I’m glad to have cleared up this issue – I didn’t think you were a racist as much as I thought you were a bit ‘loose’ with history and the whole Western supremacy thing (which has a point of course, but hard to argue without writing a whole book) 🙂
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May 8, 2014 at 11:23 pm |
Dear Andrej: Happy everybody is happy, and even Putin has been invited to the D Day ceremony, now that he plays nicer and chastened on TV, for the 60th anniversary, and has accepted! ;-)! My aim was always to steer Putin and his plutocracy, at least in a tolerable way… Because, anyway, that’s the thing we have to do all over.
BTW, the argument that behavior and experience modify genes is epigenetics, and abuse, suffered is indeed of experimentally tested evidence on genes. I think that’s what Benign tired to say. I have a bit more in my next essay on that, to be posted within 40 minutes…
PA
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May 3, 2014 at 10:33 pm |
On the Rafale, and the increasingly un-armed status of the USA, question air superiority:
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May 3, 2014 at 11:18 pm |
Russian occupied, complete with nuclear missiles:
http://www.euronews.com/2013/12/16/baltic-alarm-over-reports-of-russian-nuclear-missiles-in-kaliningrad/
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May 3, 2014 at 11:24 pm |
Please cease and desist with the ad hominem attacks, they are very unbecoming. I am pround of my avatar, and hope to be benign or better in the effect I have on the world.
Yes, Pluto Putin’s statements are concerning. I am attributing to him, perhaps too optimistically, the ability *not* to invade, but to play the larger game, for the hearts and minds, that America is losing around the world. But I am not deluded. (What I found ridiculous was your assertion that his self-destruction was somehow due to Evolution.)
It is well-documented that the Washington Consensus (Great Game strategy) calls for Russia to be hobbled, for a pan-Asian alliance and trade zone to be avoided at all costs. Putin is not paranoid about that. He has probably read Brezinski (BTW, please post links to the Putin stuff you’ve read or seen, thanks).
At this point, this is a civil war. Putin is not Hitler, although he sounds like him. The US strategy is to create another failed state and enslave it to the Western banks. The IMF is actually holding out more money as bait if the Ukraine will abandon its ties to Russia. So long as Russia stays out, so should the West.
If Russia invades, it becomes a matter of tactics, managing a conventional war. I would suggest (post Iraq “war) that proportionality will be key to preventing exponential escalation. Anything else is MADness on either side.
No matter what happens, the Ukraine is screwed. Hail Plutocracy! Gives us armchair generals something to blog about (merde)!
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May 4, 2014 at 3:43 am |
Benign: It’s not a personal attack to say, ad hominem, that homo is not benign. It’s actually my main idea number # 956.
Attributing to Putin the ability *not* to invade is strange, in light of his invasions against three countries already, with tanks. And his totally explicit paranoid message, let alone claim that several nations, some at the UN for 60 years, are actually “Russia”. If the West accepts this too long, the war will be terrible.
My assertion that the will to destroy, including self destroy, is part of the deepest biology of Homo, you find “ridiculous” (what happened to the “benign” approach?). However, that’s another of my main ideas. It allows to understand much of history. But, since you claim you have come across those who can see the future, I should not ask you to focus on history too…
Just asserting Putin is not Hitler, after I wrote entire essays demonstrating just that, does not really advance the debate. The problem is to roll out an idea of mine making my , for detailled reasons.
I said Putin wants to hide his socio-economic failure. Same idea when he hounds down gays and those disrespectful of his baboon church (notice the proudly ad hominem, discriminatory torpedo). You just reply by telling me you hope Putin is benign (ooppsss).
Putin sent hundreds (or more) of specially trained “polite young men” and “special forces” (said the Slaviansk self declared mayor) throughout Ukraine, to cause mayhem. It’s obvious considering their objectives, and great skills (they operate tanks expertly and shot down aircrafts).
For your information, Putin, in his stupidity, made it clear that he views the conquest f Ukraine just part of a globasl war in which the very survival of Russia is at stake. The way he is going, that’s indeed the case.
The EU-USA has twenty times the GDP of Russia, and Russia depends crucially on it, technologically, that’s an other indication that the Will To Suicide of Putin is overwhelming. (How does he think he will win? Just because Obama is a wimp, and Merkel an overweight Marktfrau?)
As far as MADness is concerned, only three countries have tactical nuclear weapons: Russia, the USA and France. If the situation went out of control, a conventional attack on the short range nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad oblast would be a good precaution, and could be done safely (!).
Ukraine is not necessarily screwed. Russia, though, is.
PA
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May 4, 2014 at 6:18 am |
[Sent to RSN, after another blatant pro-Putin propaganda piece there.]
I wasted hours reading Putin, and I can see exactly what portions of Putin Mr. Parry cut (as he quoted some passage immediately after some of Putin’s most outrageous and grievous admissions, made in a 4.5 hour TV conference, which is available in translation from Putin’s own propaganda machine).
I view the NYT as a plutocratic newspaper, but that does not excuse Mr. Parry lying by blatant omission.
Yes Putin sent who he called “little green men” and “very polite young men” and “very professional troops”. Thousands of them, beyond the forces Parry talks about. And yes shots were fired, and people and officers killed.
Putin also said, at length, that Ukraine was Russia, and that the West wanted to destroy all of Russia, its “hugeness”.
So Russians had to be ready for a struggle to death, and death for others was most attractive anyway. How much more fascist can one be?
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May 5, 2014 at 4:03 am |
If may I add a different view point. The potential outcome of Putin invading Ukraine will be very different from that of Hitler’s anaxation of Czechoslovakia. Hitler found a huge reservoir of arms and well functioning economy flourishing because of democratic political system and above all industry that helped him alot with his agresiv intentions. Putin if anaxing Ukraine will find a devastated country, with people so desperate for change and disconnect themselves from the Plutocracy installed on them by Putin himself, that are ready to freeze themselves to death to get him out.
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May 5, 2014 at 4:44 am |
Dear Eugen: You make a very astute point, that very few would know enough to make. Indeed, when Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia, he found a very well functioning country, with a mighty military-industrial complex.
When Hitler’s Panzer army charged through France, two years later, half of his tanks were Czech.
Another thing is that the oppression of Ukraine by Russia is now really long in the tooth, arguably nearly 3 centuries. Whereas Czechoslovakia under Austro-Hungary had been doing rather well, and Germany (‘s Second Reich) was created only in 1871 (at Versailles)… So the oppression was not as outrageously long.
As I tried to explain to Benign, Putin’s attitude is deeply maso-destructive. Under no scenario does Putin and his clique win. Under obvious scenarios, Muscovy will be wiped out.
PA
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May 5, 2014 at 3:32 pm |
Dear Patrice thank you for your outstanding reply. Let me share with you a personal experience about the subject i had, that show how much cruelty some times can be in this world. Once i visited a neglected industrial park in Prague where the guide showed to me the very hall, were the German Tiger tanks were produced. The industrial park was part of industrial complex called CKD, established at the end of 19 century by Mr. E.Kolben a Jew from Prague.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Kolben
As you can see in the link, this distinguished man, an acquaintance of T.Edison and Tesla ended his life in a Nazi concentration camp.
When you look into the personnel histories of individual people, who are not in the front line of historical importance, you will find out the real dimension of human tragedy caused by acts of some Egomaniac who happened to reach the top of political decision making.
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May 5, 2014 at 5:22 pm |
The tragedy of Homo is that he has to be his own worst enemy.
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May 5, 2014 at 8:33 pm
Patrice! IT IS A GREAT SENTENCE.
I am following the latest astonishing scientific-technological achievements (like observing the gravitational waves colossal ripples) it seems to me, we are just few generation from becoming God like. Maybe there Is a Supervisor after All, who wants to limit the Human development to certain level?
Then his tool could be to use his allies, the religious fanatics to destroy the existing highly developed culture and replace it with a primitive religious one? (This comment of course meant to be a joke. If you did not find it funny so excuse us 🙂
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May 5, 2014 at 9:58 pm |
Another problem is that the very act of electing leaders favors egomaniacs… This argument was long used by autocrats (themselves genetically, epigenetically and culturally egomaniacal).
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May 5, 2014 at 4:54 am |
Putin in his own words, not to say, worlds:
http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/7034
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