I really liked the two faces you presented...and you are correct, we are also ruled by an oligarchy, which might consist of the small group of powerful men and corporations who run this country. We do have to take this power away....
These days the main source of tyranny isn’t any one leader but instead the less visible structures of imperial global capitalism working through the deep state structures of what is left of the nation states. All modern day US presidents were mere functionaries of this inverted totalitarianism. Putin is himself, at least, partially a creature of these forces. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine did not so much originate in Putin’s head as it was imposed on Russia through relentless eastward march of NATO, coupled with deft manipulation of Putin’s psychological weaknesses. Imperial structures wanted this war and they’ve got it. Not to discern the role of these imperial supra national forces disconnects your analysis from critical elements of our reality, and inflicts on it an unrecoverable injury.
War is a great evil. But it’s what humans do, it seems naive to deny this reality. So, wars have an ethical dimension, ie are they just wars or not? This is not to advocate war, it should be avoided, it must be only a last resort. Many wars are not just at all, eg the Iraq War, the War on the Unvaccinated. This is the question everyone should ask. But we cannot answer this question on Ukraine yet because most of us (including myself) do not have all the information needed to make the judgment. One set of my grandparents was born in the late Russian Empire, in a prosperous part, just before the revolution. I know a lot about the history and geography of the area, I’ve visited relatives and friends there often and it is fiendishly complicated. So many inter-generational psychological scars from Soviet Times too. For many, WW2 ended in 1989. The Holocaust also took place there so there is also a Jewish dimension to the history. I’m glad I don’t have to do a crash course in history now or my head would explode!
I really liked the two faces you presented...and you are correct, we are also ruled by an oligarchy, which might consist of the small group of powerful men and corporations who run this country. We do have to take this power away....
These days the main source of tyranny isn’t any one leader but instead the less visible structures of imperial global capitalism working through the deep state structures of what is left of the nation states. All modern day US presidents were mere functionaries of this inverted totalitarianism. Putin is himself, at least, partially a creature of these forces. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine did not so much originate in Putin’s head as it was imposed on Russia through relentless eastward march of NATO, coupled with deft manipulation of Putin’s psychological weaknesses. Imperial structures wanted this war and they’ve got it. Not to discern the role of these imperial supra national forces disconnects your analysis from critical elements of our reality, and inflicts on it an unrecoverable injury.
War is a great evil. But it’s what humans do, it seems naive to deny this reality. So, wars have an ethical dimension, ie are they just wars or not? This is not to advocate war, it should be avoided, it must be only a last resort. Many wars are not just at all, eg the Iraq War, the War on the Unvaccinated. This is the question everyone should ask. But we cannot answer this question on Ukraine yet because most of us (including myself) do not have all the information needed to make the judgment. One set of my grandparents was born in the late Russian Empire, in a prosperous part, just before the revolution. I know a lot about the history and geography of the area, I’ve visited relatives and friends there often and it is fiendishly complicated. So many inter-generational psychological scars from Soviet Times too. For many, WW2 ended in 1989. The Holocaust also took place there so there is also a Jewish dimension to the history. I’m glad I don’t have to do a crash course in history now or my head would explode!