Realism, Morality, and the Leviathan

I believe in the concept of the Leviathan, and that it's immoral to encourage people to physically attack when death and destruction at the hands of the Leviathon are certain. But there are many instances where there is no clear Leviathan. The correct moral choice may indeed depend upon the correct assessment of military / police strength.

Reassessing Western Democracy, Part 2

 Clash of Civilizations

A month ago I wrote Reassesing Western Democracy, Part 1.  Since then, I've read a couple of books which shed further light on the subject:

• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 1996 by Samuel P. Huntington

• The Declassification Engine, What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets, 2023 by Matthew Connelly

These two books help immensely in consolidating my world view. Basically, I believe Western democracy has become dysfunctional and is ripe for extensive revision.

The Clash of Civilizations clarifies the nature of our world. There are approximately 10 major civilizations.  Absent the apocalypse, these civilizations will endure and develop independently.  Technology will spread, but the cultures and institutions will remain distinct for the foreseeable future.  Civilizational leaders would be wise to respect the other civilizations to preserve order in the world.

The Ukraine War shows what happens when there is a lack of respect for other civilizations. Russia (historically Orthodox Slavic Christianity) is one of the world's major civilizations. Prominent leaders in the West (Lindsay Graham and John McCain) have dismissed Russia as "a gas station masquerading as a country". This has been a bipartisan affair in the West, with Democrat Adam Schiff calling for us to fight Russia in Ukraine so we don't have to fight them here.  President Trump was impeached for hesitating in supplying weapons to Ukraine.  The mainstream media in the West has been united with the political and cultural leadership in denigrating Russia and encouraging military confrontation on its historical territory.

Other civilizations are siding with Russia against the West.  

Assessing the Alternatives

If Western civilization is failing, what about the alternatives? What do we know about Russia, China and east Asia, the Islamic World, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa?  I have been impressed with Putin.  Russia under his leadership is providing a much needed intervention with regard to the dysfunctional West.  China under Xi also seems like a credible alternative.  

Thanks to Russia, in my view, no country need feel ashamed of its leadership.  Almost every non-Western country has traditionally been seen, at least in the West, as being inferior to the Western democracies.  Francis Fukuyama even posited the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.  The 21st century has not been kind to this world view.  From the Iraq War in 2003, to the great financial crisis of 2008, to the Trump presidency in 2016, to the Ukraine proxy war in 2022, Western democracy now appears weak.  No one could admit this until Russia took on the West militarily.  

The list of countries that have broken from the grip of the Western empire since Russia stood up to them, with the support of China, is impressive: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Pakistan have joined pariah nations such as Iran and Venezuela in asserting their independence and refusing to join the West in sanctioning Russia.  Modi, Erdogan, bin Salman, Ramaphosa, and their brethren are no longer second class world leaders, shamed by the West as imperfect democracies.  Rather it is the Western "democracies" that, in my view, stand out as unpopular and hypocritical.  The Western intelligence agencies (chiefly U.S. and Britain) have longed subverted democracy at home and abroad.  Nowhere is this clearer than in Ukraine, and suddenly people recognize that this has been happening around the world since WWII, including in their own countries.

So every country is now a potential alternative to our broken system of government.  But I'm a believer in Huntington's view of civilizations and the legitimacy of different approaches to national / civilizational leadership. Obviously, the Saudi or Iranian styles would not work in the U.S. Likewise the Chinese or Russian systems.  We need to go our own way, while recognizing the limitations of our current ideology.  

1. The deep (permanent) state is powerful for a reason. No country can survive a complete set of policy turnovers every 4 years.  Perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Russian and Chinese models where leaders lead for 20 years or more.  

2. The dark (secret) state is powerful for a reason. No leader can lead effectively without a certain degree of control over the press.

Without a revolution, we can come terms with the limitations of our current system.  The 2-party charade is just that.  We have an establishment and it's not really up for election every 4 years, for better or worse.  The First Amendment is one of our great strengths, but our system of manufacturing consent is no longer working (if it was ever a net positive). We need to tone down our bluster, while addressing our free speech deficiencies, in my opinion.  In other words, we need to focus on what our real problems are and stop trying to scapegoat China, Russia, and other civilizations or factions within the West.

Constructive Ideas 

Arms Control

Scott Ritter is my inspiration for this. See Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.  It seems obvious to me that humankind will destroy itself if we don't learn to control our weaponry.  The major powers would only benefit by a return to the days of arms control treaties.  These worked well for decades, but seem (in my view and elsewhere) to have been undermined by the hegemonic impulses of the U.S.  We the people should make this our number one priority.  

The renewed Cold War and escalating arms race is abhorrent.  The U.S. is driving this, in my view.   Of course, Russia and China have their own deep, dark states and propaganda operations along with soaring military budgets. But the U.S. led West outspends these competitors by an order of magnitude (10 times).  We are the leader in the arms race and are in the best position to bring it under control.

Multipolar United Nations

The United Nations has always been a Europe-centric institution.  Of late, it has been compromised by the West and consequently unable to fulfill its mission. Its archaic and corrupt.  

No institution is perfect, but a better United Nations can help with many of the world's problems -- from arms control to climate degradation.  Jeffrey Sachs has a lot of good ideas in this regard.  

Xi and Putin talk about this all the time. Perhaps we can engage constructively on this issue.

History Lab

One of the great things about the West is that freedom of speech is a core value.  As discussed above, this right is not as absolute as we pretend.  Classification of documents for national security purposes is pervasive, and selective leaks and enforcement of secrecy laws has been weaponized for imperial and partisan purposes.  To some extent, this is unavoidable as there are tradeoffs between government efficiency and freedom.  

But we can work to strengthen this great value of our culture.  Leadership may need to come from the private sector, given the practical constraints our politicians face.  The History Lab is a team of scholars, designers, scientists, and engineers building tools to preserve the fabric of the past and provide lessons for the future. 

Election Reform 

Approval Voting

Approval voting is a single-winner voting method that allows voters to choose any number of candidates. The candidate chosen the most wins.  Benefits include:

• Tends to elect more consensus winners.  there will be incentives for candidates to cooperate in the sense of not bad mouthing other candidates.  This is "gaming" the system in a positive sense.

• Alternate candidates get a more accurate measure of support.

• Simplicity: 

• Ballots look the same, except the rules indicate that you may vote for any number of candidates

• Results are still easy to understand: a simple list of the candidates along with how many votes they received

Steve Randy Waldman is someone who has given specific changes a lot of thought and proposed constructive incremental changes.  You can find his ideas at interfluidity.com and drafts.interfluidity.com.

Conclusion

Obviously, these constructive ideas just scratch the surface of what we can do if we stop fighting one another and cooperate to improve the world. 

 

Thoughts of the Deep, Dark State

The Deep Dark State - definition. The state is a set of governing institutions. The deep state is the set of permanent institutions and employees, i,e, those not subject to change due to elections. The dark state is the set of governing people and institutions who have access to classified documents.

The deep and dark states need not be monolithic, just as the state itself can have various factions. 

However, the monetary incentives for the deep and dark states have a clear bias in supporting the status quo, and against competing civilizations.  The amount of money involved goes beyond the military-industrial complex to the overwhelming bulk of the economy. Thus, for example, people and institutions supporting Putin in the Ukraine War would not get far with the deep and dark states. Similarly, Bernie Sanders was for the most part opposed by the deep and dark states.

Good, patriotic intentions may be influenced by the need to earn a living and the desire to have greater agency.  There is something of a continuum on a line from patriotism to corruption.  This is true in every country.

The quesion, then, is: To what extent is one's worldview and culture based upon the more corrupt (or dysfunctional) end of the spectrum? How does this vary among countries and civilizations?

One possible conclusion is that all countries are equally corrupt and delusional.  Therefore, no war is justified.  Alternatively, one might argue that one should always support one's own country if it is impossible to judge who is right and who is wrong.  My personal opinion is that the details matter.  Some wars may be justified and others folly.  To the extent I still believe in democracy, I believe it is important to discuss the details.

Mother of all Losers

 The Biden Admininistration's foreign policy, in cooperation with NATO, is the worst ever.  

GOAL: Weaken Putin

RAND Corporation released a concerned report that Russia is learning how to fight NATO while modernizing its own army, and NATO is not getting any real, on the ground, hands-on experience themselves, at least nothing comparable to what Russian soldiers are getting through this conflict

In May 2023, over 80 percent of Russians approved of activities of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The popularity level was five percent higher than in September 2022, when it stood at 77 percent.

Mercouris video on deplomatic relations (excerpts begin at 56:42):

At the G7 meeting Modi did say a lot of other things. He talked again about international law. He says Global Peace stability and prosperity is a common objective. In today's interconnected world, crisis in any one region affects all the countries and the developing countries which have limited resources are the worst affected.  These countries are facing the maximum and most profound impact of the food, fuel, and fertilizer crisis, and that's a clear rebuke to the Western powers. It raises the question as to why we are facing the need to discuss matters of peace and stability in distinct forums (such as G7) and not the United Nations which was established with the very purpose of establishing peace? Why does it often fail to prevent conflicts today? Why even the definition of terrorism has not been accepted in the United Nations? If introspection is done then one thing is clear -- The institutions created in the last century are not in line with the system of the 21st century. They do not reflect the realities of the present -- that is why it is necessary that reform should be given concrete shape in big institutions like the UN. The UN will also have to become the voice of the global South. Otherwise we will just keep talking and the U.N Security Council will become just a talk shop. Why is the United Nations dominated still by the victorious powers of the second World War? Why in effect do the Western Powers -- the United States, Britain, and France -- still have three permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council whereas the global South does not have a permanent representative?

Another leader who was also at the G7 and who was apparently extremely unhappy by the way that he was treated there and that was President of Brazil Lula de Silva.  So what does Lula de Silva do as soon as he gets back to Brazil -- he telephones President Putin...  The president of Brazil shared his impressions of participating in the recent G7 Summit and also outlined his vision of possible mediation efforts to find ways of resolving the conflict in Ukraine.  It's almost as if Lula were reporting to Putin about the G7. I wonder whether that means by the way that Lula in future might not receive invitations. It's been pointed out recently that South Africa, which is very much in the uh West's bad country list at the moment, was not invited to the G7....

We have an interesting contrast in diplomatic styles with Biden and Putin and their respective approaches to Erdogan.  

Putin telephones Erdogan and tells him: 

"We're delighted to see you reelected. You have our warm congratulations. We look forward to working with you on every conceivable issue in our relations." 

It's a warm and friendly call between Putin and Erdogan. 

By contrast, it is a lot more tense call from Biden. The call is purportedly to congratulate Erdogan over his re-election, but in practice is to put pressure on him, bully him perhaps might not be too strong a word, to remind him pointedly that he's a member of NATO and that comes with certain obligations. Turkey should in other words distance itself from the Russians and support the Western position over Ukraine.   The terseness of the Turkish readout confirms that relations between Russia and Turkey have steadily improved over the last couple of years, while relations between Turkey and the United States have steadily deteriorated.

In sum, Russian factories are running all out producing war goods, its military engineers are enhancing its weapons and related technologies, its military commanders are honing their battlefield tactics and practicing against the combined efforts of 31 NATO countries and 10 or more additional Western allies, Putin is more popular than any Western leader in his/her wildest dreams, Russia's economy is strong in the light of closer ties with countries such as China, India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Iran, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabian, etc, and Putin and Russia enjoy improved diplomatic relations with many of the world's most powerful nations.

This is failure on an epic scale. Time to double down! 

It was reported last week that fearful of leaks, Ukraine has shared their offensive plans with only a tiny handful of people in the West. Apparently Lindsay Graham was one of them, as a new Politico piece reports with joy that Graham has been given a very thorough ‘deep-dive’ of the full offensive plans, which he calls very ‘impressive’. He further says that the Russians are in for a big surprise and ‘rude awakening’.

Lindsay Graham, Friend of Ukraine

Lindsay Graham is one of the good (non-Trump) Republicans:

"It was reported last week that fearful of leaks, Ukraine has shared their offensive plans with only a tiny handful of people in the West. Apparently Lindsay Graham was one of them, as a new Politico piece reports with joy that Graham has been given a very thorough ‘deep-dive’ of the full offensive plans, which he calls very ‘impressive’. He further says that the Russians are in for a big surprise and ‘rude awakening’."

But Graham has already done so much for Ukraine:

"In 2016, the United States committed to arming Ukraine to fight and win a war against Russia. A video, filmed during John McCain’s visit to Ukraine in 2016, has resurfaced. It shows the senator accompanied by his colleague and friend, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. In this video, Senators Graham and McCain assure that the U.S. will give all the weapons necessary for them to succeed in defeating Russia." 

#unprovoked 

Update from the Far East

 It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.  Actually, nothing could be further from the truth, but this afternoon finds me comfortably back in my home office.  Where's Waldo?

I get to watch and hear all the events in the neighborhood, including the continuing march of the ants back and forth along the telephone (internet) wire).  The ants go marching one by one, hurrah!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/xa7YN9AgG4GxLGqw6 (Click the play button on the previous link to get the full experience.) 

Before getting into the bad news, and in light of my recent Debbie Downer email, I'd like to share a short video clip which is like water to a thirsty soul, restoring one's faith in humanity:  Click the link below and turn on the volume....

https://twitter.com/rolandgarros/status/1663674562859417600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1663674562859417600%7Ctwgr%5Eed4c13631ff6498419d86efd8657da87a4de4dd5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-10730925632232892875.ampproject.net%2F2303151529000%2Fframe.html 

If you don't get Twitter, you can get the idea on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7__ptFjYhV8 

On the more traumatic news.  

• First, I've come through the last week as a committed Asia-phile.  The people in Singapore were some of the friendliest I've ever encountered.  And the Philippines is not only much more more modern than before, but even more friendly in my experience
• Technology is a big nothing burger in both countries, in a good (Buddhist) way.  .  When it works, and it usually does with some patience, the end result is nothing.   Your bureaucratic problems are solved because of the technology, and all you notice is that you can get on with enjoying the people and environment around you.
• Speaking of technology, our travel arrangements to Singapore, handled completely from Detroit over the Internet, worked out perfectly.  Cebu Pacific Air was a delight, as was the Swissôtel Stamford Singapore
• I've never spent so much on a hotel before, but with Lily's difficulty walking, I wanted to be right in the center of the action.  I was able to save significant money by not buying any travel insurance on the flight and hotel.
• The first 4 days were a challenge but went as I'd hoped.   We toured Gardens by the  Bay, Little India, Kampong Glam, the British colonial district, home of the SIngapore Sling, dazzling technological, floral, and botanical displays, subways, taxis, buses, underground malls, incredibly diverse linguistic and cultural society with apparently thriving markets, harbors, historical treasures, ...
  a few photos

I'm a great believer in the miracles of neoliberal capitalism!  Ok, I'm partly kidding here.  I think technology along with greatly increased trade and "development" are generally good things, but also lead to hardships on the lower classes whose ways of life become endangered prices (e.g. energy) soar). Great for tourists however!

Seriously, though, I've been knocked off my feet by the friendliness of the locals in Singapore and Philippines.  Something serious and cross-cultural is going on.  I had been tipped off by a friend to look for signs of Lee Kuan Yew and his Asian Values movement.  I did look for signs, saw them, and as usual enjoyed an ego boost through confirmation bias.  Hooray for the Lees! (Lee Kuan Yew's eldest son Lee Hsien Loong is current prime minister of Singapore, and BongBong Marcos (son of old favorite dictator Ferdinand) is current president of the Philippines. I've been listening (via Audibile books). to a 1990s   non-fiction classic - The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, by Samuel P. Huntington.  He seems to have pretty much nailed, 25 years before the fact, the Ukraine War and the ongoing crises of civilizations.  

 

Back to the personal saga::  On day 5 of our 8 day pilgrimage in Singapore,  we woke up with what I can only describe as an acute respiratory illness of some sort.  That was pretty much the end of our Singapore vacation, with the main excitement then being getting out of the hotel amidst a non-stop barrage of phlegm and nose running and coughing. and embarking upon the 12 your excursion back here to Home Sweet Home!!!! (Be it ever so humble and all that.) We left the air-conditioned hotel, took a air-conditioned taxi ride to the air-conditioned airport, I lost my cool swearing at the technological obstacles to check-in, we sat on the plane, packed like sardines, wearing n95 masks while continually coughing sneezing and blowing my nose, were picked up at the airport in air-conditioned van by Lily'y neice and additional relatives, drove several hours to the port city of Batangas (southern Luzon), waited several hours on the van which was in turn on a roll-on-roll-off (ferry) boat headed for Lily's hometown of Calapan.  Another relative met us at the Calapan pier, after the 2 hour RoRoRide (say that five times real fast) and took us the last five minutes to Lily's abode here in barangay Libis in Calapan.  I proceeded to have the best night's sleep of my life as a massive storm swept through town in the wake of Typhoon Betty.  

Parts of Western Visayas and Mimaropa see heavy rain from 

the southwest monsoon, which is being enhanced by Typhoon Betty 

(Mawar), on Tuesday evening, May 30

Okay -- Back to watching the ants!

Classic Literature is Relevant

 We are living through times that bring to life classics such as these:

• The Scarlet Letter
• The Lottery
• The New Testament
• The Wizard of Oz
• The Emperor's New Clothes
• The Crucible
• Catch 22

See Durham, FBI Whistleblowers, and "The Great Loyalty Oath Crusade" (pay walled but I can forward text upon request to danielsecrest@gmail.com).  Excerpt:

The whole New Testament is about Captain Black, because the whole New Testament suggests that the reigning religion of Jerusalem has become hidebound and bureaucratic, and the priests are serving themselves. And then along comes this revolutionary Jesus who says, “Hey man. You’ve forgotten the spirit of your faith in the name of all of these requirements.” So whatever side of the New Testament you’re on, whether you’re a Jew or a Christian, I don’t know. But that’s the spirit of that book, which is anti-bureaucratic…

I highly recommend the whole article linked above.  It reflects my deepest beliefs.  Human nature does seem to be such that societies come to absurdity at moments in history like the present.  American, Russian, Judean -- it occurs repeatedly in different times and places.  I've learned to accept this and try to deal with it constructively, which means occasionally sharing my thoughts with those I love the most. 

Reassessing Western Democracy, Part 1

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man

The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book of political philosophy by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama which argues that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy—which occurred after the Cold War (1945–1991) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)—humanity has reached "not just ... the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such

It now seems to me that Fukuyama was wrong, and that Samuel Huntington was right --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations 

The Clash of Civilizations is a thesis that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post–Cold War world. The American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures. It was proposed in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?", in response to his former student Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. 

Western liberal democracy is now descending. What are the alternatives, and how do we get from here to there?

Note the issue of agency.  Biden the person has little agency.  He is credited or blamed, but few believe that he is running things.  Compare this to Putin.  People, in the West especially, believe that he is running the Russian show and deserves all the blame (but strangely not the credit).  My view is that this reflects Western corruption.  Accountability is masked by weak and expendable political leaders.  

As an example of this, see Senate Report: Nearly 700 Former High-Ranking Pentagon and Other Government Officials Now Work at the Top 20 Defense Contractors.  

Derek Seidman details in a recent article in Truthout how many of the key architects of the Iraq War have benefited from the revolving door, finding positions with defense industry giants, tech firms and Wall Street investors, and enjoying the good life, raking in consulting and speaker fees, their images washed as they profit handsomely from the insider access they provide.

Where is the accountability in our democratic system for this disastrous war?  Putin and Xi are personally accountable and have lost zero wars between them in a combined 30 plus years of rule. Perhaps the Russian and Chinese systems have certain advantages that we should consider?

My knee jerk reaction is that  the Russian and Chinese systems merely look good because the West is self-destructing.  These are autocracies.  I am a child of the enlightenment and want to believe in democracy.  But democracy does not seem to have the record of success that is the conventional wisdom in the West.  I believed in this conventional wisdom, but now have doubts.

Neither liberal democracy nor conservative dictatorship (where fascism is an extreme outlier) can claim an obvious historical advantage in terms of social coordination at scale.  For example, the Roman Empire started out as a democracy of sorts (a republic), but morphed midway into an autocratic empire. Similarly, Greek democracy burned brightly for only a short time. American democracy has been going for a couple of hundred years, but is showing increasing signs of burning out as a liberal enterprise.  Neither China nor Russia have ever been liberal democracies, but are two of the most powerful states today.  European countries are mostly liberal democracies today, but came to power as conservative kingdoms 

The first step to building a better system of government is to recognize the deficiencies of our current system.  I favor an incremental approach, leveraging what works in our current system, and addressing our failings in light of what currently work elsewhere.  In subsequent posts, I will consider alternatives in a more detailed manner.

Russia's Strategic Advantage

Russia has learned a lesson from the colonial failures of the last 100 years.  Russia does not try to militarily occupy and administer hostile populations.  The West has portrayed this as weakness.

The Ukraine War demonstrates this. The West's oft stated goal was to weaken Russia by drawing it into an Afghanistan like situation.  See this 2019 RAND study: Extending Russia, Competing from Advantageous Ground, for example. Rather than fall into this trap, Russia has made clear that its objective is not to conquer Ukraine, but rather to protect and integrate the ethnic Russian population that was engaged in civil war with the western Ukraine and which clearly wants to be part of Russia.

While Russia militarily invaded central and northern Ukraine, this was part of an effort to weaken the Ukraine military that was attacking Donbass, and was also intended to force Ukraine to the bargaining table.  When the latter objective (negotiations) failed, the Russians quickly withdrew from central and northern Ukraine to focus their efforts on the areas with a supportive Russian population.  They do not want to administer the hostile parts of Ukraine -- a war torn region of 25-30 million people.

Given recent experiences in countries such as Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, this seems like a prudent course of action, and one which has highlighted the West's unwillingness to learn.  The conventional wisdom in the West has been that:

1. Russia would quickly conquer all of Ukraine.
   and
2. It's failure to do so was a sign of weakness.

If Russia had conquered Ukraine, it would be in charge of a hostile population and likely facing an insurgency.   As it is, it faces the more manageable task of integrating ethnic Russians into Russia.  On the world stage, Russia is demonstrating that its interests cannot be ignored by the West.  China, India, and are 3rd world nations are now joining Russia in calling for more even-handed mulitpolar institutions. 

On a related note, it seems that Russia's military industrial complex serves the country, rather than the other way around as in the U.S.  We have much to learn from our competitors on the world stage.

National Mythologies: East v West

 The conflict in Ukraine is coalescing into two warring camps:

• The West: US, Europe, Anglo allies, Japan
• The East: Russia, China

The bi-polar nature of the conflict is becoming more and more pronounced. Much of the world is looking on, but yet to definitively choose a side.  What does it look like from the outside?

The West's vision is of prosperity, technology, and freedom, the natural evolution of the industrial revolotuion and European colonization of the world.  The East's vision is of the rest of the world catching up to the West in technology and prosperity, and of pushing back with regard to freedom.  Western freedom has always favored the West, and Russia is fighting back on this front.  China has surveyed the landscape and decided it stands firmly with Russia in this regard.

Beyond the military/industrial/economic details lies mythology of who we are and what we stand for and where we are headed.  The West's enlightenment mythology is being exposed by the Internet,  Everybody can see the hypocrisy.  What does the East offer as an alternative?  

1. The truth.  The East merely has to point out the hypocrisy of the West to earn empathy.
2. A new world order which is fairer and with better prospects for peace.  The old world order is clearly failing with hot and cold wars drowning out the prospects for a prosperous future.  China and Russia regularly lay out the case for a new and improved multipolar world.

In short, the East has the better vision -- one based on reality.  The West's enlightenment vision has been corrupted beyond recognition.  The East offers better prospects for a healthy future.

Gratitude for Russia

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." - George Orwell, 'In Front Of Your Nose,' 1946.

Russia is one of only two countries with the economic and military might to stand up to the lies and military aggression of the US-led West. If Russia hadn't confronted the U.S. militarily over Ukraine, Western military agression would have gone on unchecked, creating additional catastrophes for human civilization such as we have seen in Vietnam, Indonesia, Iraq, Latin America, Afghanistan, Syria, and now Ukraine.

Humanity faces real problems such as global warming and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. has diverted attention from these problems while fear mongering with regard to countries such as China and Russia, and started a new and potentially fatal arms race.

So I am grateful to Putin and Russia and hope their victory in Ukraine knocks some sense into the West. They put everything on the iine for what they believe to be true and just. Then our number one priority, as passionately advocated by Scott Ritter, should be a return to serious arms control.

My World View

 Again, Jeffrey Sachs has pretty much captured, and made explicit, my worldview: 

Jeffrey D. Sachs – The New Geopolitics

Evil Defined

What is evil?  It can be defined by example.  It is criminal, but possibly understandable, to kill someone (e.g. crime of passion, self defense, revenge, etc.).  But to kill someone and blame someone else who is innocent is evil.  Any possible rationale with regard to ultimate justice is forfeited when the innocent are falsely accused.

And so the West's condemnation of Putin is the world's greatest evil today.  It has resulted in a horrific war in Ukraine and a new arms race that threatens to destroy humanity.  The West abrogrates treaties with Russia and moves weapons close to its borders, interferes violently in its politics and in the politics of neighboring countries, all the while accusing Russia of this behavior. 

This can be seen most clearly in the scapegoating of Russia for the election of Donald Trump in 2016.  Democratic politicians worked with the Ukraine governmet to falsely demonize Russia and Putin.  Working with a foreign government to influence an election is illegal.  Accusing Trump of doing what the Democrats were themselves doing is (and continues to be) evil.

The same can be said for war crimes in Ukraine.  War crimes committed by Ukrainian partisans are blamed on Russia.  These range from the horrific (Bucha) to the absurd (Nord Stream).

Russia is a convenient scapegoat as they are remote and have no voice in the West.  But the evil can be seen in events that have nothing to do with Russia.  For example, the covid crisis resulted in Western leadership blaming Trumpers and independents for covid disinformation, while spreading disinformation about ivermectin, vaccines, lab origins, etc.  Fauci and friends not only made mistakes, but they blamed the mistakes on others who were innocent.

We need truth and reconciliation.  The world needs to come together to fight serious problems such as the arms race, the threat of pandemic, environmental crises, and, yes, disinformation.  The West wasn't wrong to want to fight disinformation, but it was wrong to blame innocent people while the leadership spread disinformation as described above.

The West Faces Greatest Threat Ever

The "West" -- the anglophile countries plus western Europe and Japan -- is now in its worst geopolitical position ever.  This is worse than WWII when Germany and Japan were relatively isolated and bereft of natural resources.  This is worse than the heyday of the Soviet Union in alliance with Communist China in the 1960s.  Now we are in a hot, if proxy, war with Russia, and in a cold war with China.  China and Russia are strongly allied and much more powerful than they were in the 1960s. China is the world's premier manufacturer, and Russia is the leader in natural resources.  

The Worst Human Group Experience

Other than natural disaster, is there anything worse for a society than to be on the losing side in a war?  

Emotion has Sealed my Worldview

Here is a bit of self reflection.  I've noticed that I occasionally become overwhelmed with revulsion at certain behaviors and my mind is then made up.  I'm an open-minded person by nature, but there seems to a mechanism at work that keeps me from carrying this too far.  I previously took this approach more logically, writing a blog post entitled This I Believe.  I'm glad I did that as it has helped me to understand the world better.  Certain things are obvious to me and I will not let myself be gaslit.  

Logically, I say these are things that I'm > 95% sure of.  But that's intuition.  I don't have a spreadsheet for each thing I believe.  Rather, one of the functions of emotion is to fortify beliefs.  A good rule of thumb, perhaps, in expressing such strongly held beliefs is to use I-language.  For example, 

In hearing Democrats speak about Russia, I have been repeatedly overwhelmed with the feeling that they are catastrophically wrong.  This has made a profound impact on me and one that I can't / don't want to forget. 

This seems less threatening than:

Democrats continually lie about Russia and exaggerate the threat it poses to the West.  Western elites are evil in fomenting hatred against Russia based upon such lies and exaggerations. 

The Military-Financial-Information Complex

Like cancer, the U.S. military-financial-information complex (industry is less of a factor in comparison to Eisenhower's day) has strayed from its original mission and is attacking the host.

It's almost impossible to avoid being a part of this in one's daily life.

The social democratic model has proven the most effective form of political-economic governance. What prevents that from (re)emerging in US and from spreading across the globe? Why has that faltered in Britain?

Are Trump and Putin to blame? Or is there something more broadly cultural and systemic in the Anglosphere?

Did Merkel genuinely want peace in Ukraine, but was overridden by the Anglosphere? Is this a relevant context for Victoria Nuland's infamous "Fuck the EU" remark?

Primary Sources

One of the best developments of the 21st century, in my view, has been video reporting exposing the lies and errors of public officials. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart did a good job of exposing government and media misinformation with regard to the 2003 Iraq War, an event with massive consequences in terms of death, destruction, refugee crises, and trust in our institutions, both national and international. The videos juxtaposed statements by government officials and mainstream media organs with conflicting reporting of events (by equally "authoritative" institutions) as they actually turned out. We didn't have to trust Jon Stewart, we just had to trust our own eyes and ears and be alert to any signs that Stewart might be taking things out of context or doctoring videos.

In the current era of anti-Putin hysteria, there are equally good video reports available which make crystal clear the lies and errors of public officials with regard to a massively consequential event - the false demonization of Putin and the war in Ukraine. Here are some:

• Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipelines? "Russia, Russia, Russia!", by Matt Orfalea
• Russia Had Zero Influence On Election Admits Washington Post!,
  by Aaron Maté
• European Leaders ADMIT Ukraine Peace Deal Was A Sham,
  by Aaron Maté

I laugh and cry as I watch these.

Making Sense of the Cultural Landscape

I've found the following books helpful in making sense of the cultural landscape:

1. The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millenium, by Martin Gurri

2. Conspiracy Theory in America (Discovering America) by Lance deHaven-Smith

The former describes the threat of nihilism in our new technological world where information (and mis-information) is made available freely, easily, and quickly across the globe. Institutional shortcomings and crimes can now be exposed more easily, and institutions and authority figures can be falsely and irresponsibly accused.

The second book describes the importance of looking objectively and comprehensively at potential state crimes (against democracy).  While the Internet facilitates the spread of false conspiracy theories, these can includes false narratives promoted by the state.  In looking for the truth in matters of societal life and death (war, assassination, censorship, and imprisonment), state crimes are not only possible but common.  The state propagandizes against such investigation, dismissing legitimate concerns and inquiries as conspiracy theories.  Citizens of democracies can be on the alert for these attempts to exclude potential state crimes from legitimate scrutiny, and to deflect attention onto scapegoats such as Putin.

Social Discourse

 This post is in Google Docs -- The Art of Social Discourse