Young Ukrainian National Gurad volunteer.
Her long-term fate and the others like her is uncertain.
My view of the big picture. Putin took a long view in 1991 when his USSR fell. He's a classic player in the old Imperial Great Game. He's won five wars within the post-Soviet sphere of influence. His eyes on a sixth. He has made Europe dependent on his fuel energy sources. He's covertly divided perhaps ended American democracy. He wants his place in history for restoring the Russian Empire and undoing its greatest enemy the United States of America. He's just about got all the marbles. I say "...just about" as the game ain't over yet. It's 1939 again. These coming days and months are as deciding as that fateful time.
We don't need any help from Putin when it comes to undoing ourselves, we've been managing that quite well on our own; but he seems to want to help anyway. Mainly he's got all *his* marbles, which is more than can be said for our feckless and wildly incompetent "leaders," who have been stupidly poking the bear since 2014 when they shoved out Yanukovich in another dumb CIA-backed coup. Don't they ever get tired of this moldy old playbook?
ReplyDeleteToo bad about the natgas. The German Chancellor actually cut off the supply from Russia, allegedly to punish Putin, but if I were an ordinary German I'd think *I* was the one being punished. It doesn't seem like a very smooth move.
Z
Upon reflection, I think the entire western world has been in decline since August 1914. Events since then have been fluctuations, troughs and plateaux marking the path along an an inexorable descent, with the US now leading the way rapidly downward. It's not a cheerful thought, but it looks to me like this is the way it is.
ReplyDeleteYou can see this in the history of western art. The decay of that great tradition began shortly before WWI, and now the art establishment serves as a conspicuous demonstration of Gresham's law, where the dross drives out the gold. Art is the canary in the coal mine, and it has long since fallen off its perch.
Z
Sigh.
ReplyDeletePretty much.