Putin – Page 5 – Oscar Valdes

Gorbachev and China’s Central Committee

China’s Central Committee is meeting for the first time since Mikhail Gorbachev’s death.
Chairman Xi presiding.
Committee members will be identified by numbers for confidentiality.

Chairman Xi – The last president of the Soviet Union has died at the age of 91. His rise and performance in office must be studied by this committee to learn from his mistakes.
He was an eager man, full of hope and dreams but not grounded in reality. I urge all of you to study his decisions in detail so we can be stronger. I have said this before but it needs repeating.
Any comments?
Member #3 – I fully agree with the chairman. Mr Gorbachev rose to power in 1985 at a time when Russia was going through serious financial difficulties. Rather than study in detail the reasons for the economic slowdown he chose to emulate the West and came up with the notions of Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (opening). It was a horrible decision that opened the door for the end of the Soviet Union. And so he presided over the rupture of a great empire.
Member # 5 – Nothing of what he said was right. He wanted to be like Ronald Reagan. He is a symbol of decadence and gullibility. He may have been an agent of the CIA. Agree that we should study his horrible decisions.

The room is quiet.

Chairman Xi – Any other thoughts?

Member # 7 – I disagree with my comrades.

Grumbling in the room.

Member # 7 – Mikhail Gorbachev was a great man.
(louder grumbling in the room)
He had the courage to say ‘the system is not working because it’s too centralized’. And he was saying that in the mid 80s… precisely at the same time when we were opening up to the West… when we were inviting the West to come in and start businesses here… inviting them to get rich by using our people to work for them and then to sell in our large market… but we were also saying to the West… as you get richer we will get rich too… and so it happened.
In the mid 80s, we were starting to do here what Gorbachev was asking Russians to do there…
but the reaction against his ideas was too strong and their centralized system was replaced by a narrow market system dominated by just a few people – who become known as Russian oligarchs – people with ties to Boris Yeltsin and then to Vladimir Putin, to the exclusion of the majority of Russians.

At the same time, here in China, under the wise leadership of Deng Xiao Ping, the economic opening was less restrictive, so more people benefitted… and our economy leaped to now be the second largest in the world, while Russia’s is number 11, according to figures of the IMF (International Money Fund).
Gorbachev had to deal with internal dissent, just like Deng Xiao Ping had to deal with the student protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
But times have changed.
China is now a mighty nation. We made it happen in an incredibly short period of time. No nation on earth has accomplished so much in so little time. But we did not do it by ourselves. We have done what we have because we had the West to copy, steal and draw from.
That in no way diminishes our great achievement… but it reminds us to not lose perspective.
Member # 8 (interrupting) – We should put a time limit on the speaker, we get what he’s saying.
Chairman Xi – Let him continue.
Member # 7 – Thank you, Chairman.
We are now at a different stage in our political and economic development. Covid has taught us some important lessons. Though our quarantine system helped us keep the number of deaths to a minimum, continuing to rely on this system has slowed down our economic growth. We need to adapt and emphasize vaccinations more, and we should import Moderna and Pfizer vaccines which have proven superior to the ones we make.

Grumbling in the room.

Chairman Xi – Silence, please. Continue Member # 7.
Member # 7 – Thank you.
With the astonishing development of some of our industries, we have seen a lot of businesspeople grow very rich… and now are seeing this as threatening the party.
Therefore, we have begun to meddle with those companies.
I don’t think that is a good strategy.
What the tremendous growth of some businesses is telling us is that we have to change.
The Communist Party has to change. Our system has to change.

Loud grumbling in the room.

Chairman Xi – Silence, please. Continue Member # 7.
Member # 7 – Dear Chairman… I think China can change the world.
Chairman Xi – We have already done so.
Member # 7 – I mean, politically.

Dead silence.

Chairman Xi – Continue.
Member # 7 – Rather than suppress it, we should adopt Perestroika and Glasnost.

Wild cries of dissent from other members.

Chairman Xi – Silence!

The room quiets down.

Member # 7 – Chairman… I ask that that the Chinese Communist Party hold free elections in our land.

Uproar runs through the room.

Member # 13 (standing, irately) – I ask that Member # 7 be immediately removed and taken to a reeducation camp. Out of this chamber now!
Member # 20 (standing too) – This is unacceptable. Leave this room now!
Chairman Xi – Silence! Everybody sit down! Continue Member # 7.
Member # 7 – I understand that we would be giving up some of our privileges… but please consider the enormous benefits we would be getting.
Member # 18 – Traitor!
Member # 7 – And you, Chairman Xi could run for president, and I’m sure you would become the first democratically elected president in our long history.
Member # 13 – Traitor, leave this room now!
Member # 7 (unfazed) – Chairman Xi… it’s in your hands to change the world as we now know it. What an honor that would be. And the mighty energies of a great China would be released and the entire world would be the better for it.
Imagine, Chairman Xi, if we began to work with the West rather than against it. And if we did that, Taiwan would consider joining the mainland of their own accord, say by becoming one of our independently run states.
Without a shot being fired. Without a life being lost. Without a person sent to jail.
Imagine, Chairman Xi, what that would do for the war in Ukraine. What it would do for Russia.
Mr Putin would be forced to realize the errors he’s committed… and countless lives and property may be spared. The world would start a new era of cooperation and petty tyrants everywhere would not be tolerated. Human suffering would decrease sharply.
The spirit of Mikhail Gorbachev tells us that the fate of the world should not rest in the hands of the few, but in the hands of the many.
You can make it happen, Chairman Xi. Thank you, sir, and thank you this distinguished chamber for allowing me to express my opinions.

Silence.

Chairman Xi – Security officers… please escort Member # 7 to my office and remain there with him until I arrive.
This meeting is concluded.

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Gorbachev

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A visionary man has died.
The man who, after assuming the leadership of the Soviet Union in 1985, had the imagination and daring to bet that the people he was entrusted to rule had it in them to embrace freedom.
So he came up with the notions of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (opening) and for a brief period the people of that vast land breathed the sweet scent of freedom.
It wouldn’t last.
Some of his comrades began to plot against him and in the summer of 1991, staged a coup that nearly overthrew him. The conspirators were people who didn’t want to lose their privileges. Small minded people willing to do anything, such as insisting on the notion of a soviet empire to distract the people with dreams of grandeur, so they could continue to be first in line at the trough.
The Soviet Union was going through a very difficult time economically when Gorbachev rose to power. The need for change was pressing.
He bravely answered the challenge but the transition from a centrally directed economy to a market economy was slow and scarcity and poverty followed. His popularity plummeted and he resigned on Christmas day, 1991.
But in a few short years he had changed the face of the world. The Soviet Union was no more and the cold war was over. Germany was unified.
And the world saw, in astonishment, that even in a land which had been ruled for centuries by all manner of despots, czars and communists, freedom could blossom..
That precious moment had not been imported from the West. It had been a Russian thinker, a Russian patriot, a Russian visionary, a son of Russian and Ukrainian peasants who worked the land for a living, who had the courage to step forward and, putting his career on the line, say to his fellow countrymen, this is the path to follow, no matter what pains we must endure.
But the people he so loved and whose future was so dear to his heart, didn’t see the promise that shone in his eyes. And they rejected him. They would not endure the suffering he asked them to endure.
He resigned on December 25th, 1991. Some say that having the power to mobilize the army, he should have suppressed protests and kept himself as president. But that would have meant going against his core principles, going against perestroika and glasnost. That would have meant inflicting added pain on his people. He would not do it.
I am sure that in China, today, Gorbachev’s life will be studied for what not to do. For it is in the interest of that government to keep the Chinese people oppressed.
And Putin will celebrate quietly his conviction that Russians have no need for freedom. What they need is to listen to his wisdom, his insights into the human condition, the certainty that massacring the people of Ukraine is in the best interest of all Russians.
Putin will not win. The spirit of Mikhail Gorbachev will. It may take some time but just as Gorbachev changed the face of the world for the better, Putin’s actions are changing the face of the world for the worse. But the flicker of freedom that lives in the soul of Russia will soon burn brightly, and shine a light on their road to democracy.
Thank you, Mikhail Gorbachev, and your wife Raisa. We won’t forget you.
Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

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Devaluing Another Human Being

How does it start?
We think ourselves as better than them.
And we may be better. We may be smarter, have a better education, a better job, be more capable, have more money, better prospects, be better looking, be stronger, etc.
But the moment we say, ‘take notice, I’m all these things and you are not,’ we begin to devalue the other. Devalue as in ‘they don’t have what I have, they will never have what I have and should be content with their lot.’
To start down that road is dangerous. Soon we will be making judgments based on those beliefs.
Mistreatment will follow.
Resentment will be elicited.
We can be better than another human being simply because we have realized our potentials in ways they have not, for whatever reason.
But to devalue a human being is to reduce them in such way that we think that even if they had got the opportunities we were given, they would not have been able to do what we did. The devalued would have come up short every time.
Devaluing others narrows our world.
It limits our ability to appreciate differences and leads to the shortening of our horizons.
One way to counter the possibility of devaluing others is to practice kindness.
Indiscriminate kindness. All the while exercising the limits we consider appropriate.
One way to affirm that we value others is to speak up against injustice of any kind.
Even if it may cause us discomfort.
Doing so helps us discover our voice if didn’t know we had one or enrich it if we did.
Having a voice is a powerful asset. It leads to our developing the sense that we can think, which put us in intimate contact with our uniqueness.
Tyrants everywhere are counting on our devaluing others, not properly valuing ourselves and losing our voice. So they, in turn, can do the thinking for us.
Mobs do that. Political mobs. Religious mobs.
Today we have lots of mobs here in America, each asking us to join their way of thinking.
Strength in numbers, they claim. We have done the thinking for you. Join us. We have done the work for you.
Our capacity to reflect, to weigh the pros and cons and make a choice is our most important possession, more important than material wealth.
In Russia, today, Putin claims to be speaking for 125 million people.
And he believes it’s okay to send a missile into a mall and a train station and kill 23 people, in addition to the thousands he’s already murdered, because no voices will speak against it.
One hundred and twenty five million people surrendered their voices to mob thinking.
How did he do it?
Slowly. Convincing others he knew better. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll think for you.’
How did he do it?
Saying it’s okay to devalue others, ‘those Ukrainians are not made of the same stuff we Russians are made of, so it’s okay to kill them.’
And Russians agreed to it.
Only Putin will one day tell us what made him into the man willing to force such brutality.
In the meantime, we have to learn to look hard into the lives of those who want to lead us to make sure they have kindness in them, and that they have practiced it, because if we don’t find kindness then there will be brutality.
Many men and women have given their lives to give us freedom. And many more will do so for it’s in them to fight for that precious gift, like Ukrainians are doing today.
The way to honor them and all those others who’ve sacrificed to give us freedom, is not to lay a wreath at their tombs, for the great majority may have no tombs, having been buried in unmarked graves, but to let our minds think, let our voices ring loud and dare to speak up in the face of injustice.

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Why We Won’t Reelect Trump.

Trump is a symbol of retreat from the world. Which appeals to the nativist.
But it is the wrong position to take.
If Trump had been elected in 2020, there would’ve been no war in Ukraine.
He would have given Putin the green light to take it over.
‘Look Donald,’ Putin would have said, ‘I need space. I know you’re not a great supporter of NATO so I appreciate that, but still, I need some room. Poland is too close, and so is Romania and the Baltic states. And let’s face it, you have term limits in the US. After this term, who knows who will become president and they may be hostile to Russia. So this is the time for me to take over Ukraine and have some breathing room. Just in case.’
And Trump would have answered, ‘I know what you mean, I feel cramped myself with all those democrats questioning every decision I make, so, yes, go ahead. But make it quick. An overnight operation should do. Fly Zelensky and his cabinet over to Berlin… though Berlin may be too close. I leave that up to you. I’d consider Mogadishu in Somalia. I hear they have nice beaches.’
Repression would have been ruthless in Ukraine but Putin would have got his legislative body to formally annex it.
Europe would have been speechless, and they would have said to themselves, ‘we can’t look to America anymore… so either we develop our own defensive forces or we’ll be annexed next, one nation at a time.’
But in 2020, enough Americans saw the light and more than 81 million came out in favor of Biden, versus the 74 million Trump got.
If a majority of Americans rejected Trump in 2020, more will reject him in 2024 if he decides to run as he’s suggesting he will.
What do I say that? Because the majority of Americans have only become more clearly convinced in the last 2 years that Trump is an atrocious choice for president.
We don’t know yet if he cheated on his taxes but he may have. Why so adamant about sharing the documents? A verdict has not been issued on whether he incited the crowd to storm the capitol on January 6th 2021, but if we don’t call it inciting, what do we call it? Did he tamper with the voting in Fulton county, Georgia, in his mad attempt to prove the election was stolen from him? We’ll have to wait but he surely was desperate.
Then there’s the sad spectacle of Republican senators who cannot stand up to him. Grown, mature men who have swallowed their tongue, waiting for the next instruction from Mar-a- Lago.
The majority of Americans are watching silently this unbelievable display of poor judgment and have made up their minds.
By contrast, this same majority, is seeing Joe Biden be a leader to our nation. They are seeing a man and his team making every effort to address our national problems and taking on the courageous job of uniting the West in opposing Putin’s cruel invasion of Ukraine.
Biden, not Trump, had the nerve to call Putin ‘a killer’, to call Russia a pariah state.
We either believe in the good judgment of the American people or we don’t.
I believe in it. Which is why I am sure, that Trump will not get reelected if he chooses to run.
He will be beat handily. By Biden, or any worthy democratic candidate.
The elections in 2024 will go to the democrats. The reason is simple. The Republican party is being choked by Trump and they can’t find a way of pushing him off and say to him, ‘Let us breathe!’
The nativist sentiment that propelled him to the presidency remains a factor which needs addressing. The resentment from having been left behind by globalization is real and needs to be worked with. But there is no easy way out as Trump thought.
Americans left behind should be entitled to educational grants to facilitate their education and so help them raise their standard of living. They should have fought for this as globalization was starting. But their leaders, too, were asleep at the wheel.
Immigration needs to be fixed but we need immigrants. A wall won’t do because it sends a horrible message to the rest of the world.
As an open society, we can deal with the Trumps of this world. We may be fooled once but not twice.
As we speak, Russia is slowly imploding under the disastrous rule of Putin.
China has plans to become the world’s dominant power and is watching us carefully.
But as long as we are a well governed nation, with opportunities for all, our productivity will give us the edge to remain a leading country and a defender of freedom and the rights of human beings.
This we can trust.

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An Internal Front in Russia? Beware Mr Biden.

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The recent killing of Daria Dugin, daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, both Russian ultranationalists and strong supporters of Putin’s war, can be seen as a sign that a new front against the war is opening up inside of Russia.
Which is bad news for Russia.
Russian authorities are blaming Ukraine for the killing while Ukraine has vigorously denied it.
But it takes a lot of inside knowledge to pull off that action, so my take is that it’s coming from Russia itself, the military in particular.
The attack was a bold move, planting a bomb in the car she was travelling in.
My take is that we’re likely to see more of these attacks, a sign of sharp disagreements with the conduct of the war and a new resolve to put an end to it.
Will Putin be the next target?
Putin is further restricting gas exports to Europe, but the alliance is holding.
Should there be an attempt on Putin himself, would he then imagine that the West is somehow involved and try to retaliate against a western leader?
Not inconceivable given Russia’s steady downward slide in international prestige.
Putin already knows that he cannot claw himself back up to a position of respectability. He’s killed too many people, committed too many atrocities.
Additionally, there’s been a widespread deterioration in international standards.
In 2018, the Saudi prince, MBS, was considered responsible by our intelligence agencies of ordering the killing and mutilation of Jamal Khashoggi, who held resident status in our nation and was a contributing journalist to the Washington Post.
On August 12th, Salman Rushdie, the distinguished writer, was stabbed in public in Chautauqua, NY, by an American of Iranian descent who may have been influenced by Iran’s issuing an edict to kill him for having written the Satanic Verses in 1988, which Iran considered blasphemous.
India, which has enjoyed wide support from America, is oblivious to it and is joining Russia and China in military exercises.
We have an ex president thinking of running for office, who may yet be found guilty of lying on his taxes, found guilty of inciting the riot on Capitol Hill on January 6th 2021 and is suspected of tampering with the ballots in the 2020 elections in Fulton County, Georgia.
I trust that the American people, in their wisdom, will see the essence of our former president and defeat him again at the polls, as he was in 2020.
In the meantime, the war in Ukraine goes on and Putin is not winning.
If an attempt on his life were made, would he retaliate by targeting Mr Biden?
I think the FBI and the Secret Service should be on high alert to protect our president.
He has courageously pulled together the western alliance that is pushing back Russia.
Planes are said to be on the way to further aid the courageous Ukrainians.
A desperate Putin, knowing that he is a failure as a leader to Russia, may try anything.
We must be ready.

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What China Gets

They get that they would not be at this level of development without the West.
They get that.
They know that without the infusion of western knowhow they would be far behind.
They have been smart to use western knowhow and to improve on it, and they still rely on cyberattacks on the West to keep stealing scientific and industrial secrets as detailed by our intelligence services.
Meanwhile, their ruling class, still adheres to the antiquated communist system of government.
They have trouble accepting that they need to move on to a different style of leadership.
It will take time.
As a reminder of the importance of making that move, they only need to look north to Russia, to see how an intellectually limited leader like Putin, is slowly pulling his nation backwards, all the while talking nonsense about how Russia can develop in isolation. What hogwash!
With every Russian shot fired in Ukraine, with every mother, father or child killed, Russia steps further backwards, and the harder it will become for them to catch up to the rest of the world.
It would be heartwarming for the world to see some sign of unrest in Russia, like an attempt by citizens to storm the prison where Alexei Navalny is held on false charges, and set him free.
But so far, Russians are hypnotized, listening to the blah blah of Putin talking about his special operations campaign in Ukraine and the glory that awaits the nation. Which will never come.
Instead, China gets that the creative minds of their citizens need to be given room to grow, though they’re afraid they may not be able to keep a leash on them, hence their harsh restrictions on freedom and the constant surveillance.
That’s the problem.
China looks at the West and wonders how is it that we can live with so much dysfunction.
How can we elect to our highest office people with no presidential qualities, and still function.
And in the meantime, industry keeps producing and inventing, science keeps flourishing, the arts keep pushing boundaries, and all of it happening while there is much social disorder that is unacceptable.
America is an open book. All our flaws are on display. And there are plenty. But we’ve learned that it is better to display them, to feel the outrage and shame that comes with it than try to hide them. Like China tries to do with their treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province.
America is a very troubled nation. But there is a free press. Putin wouldn’t have become what he has become here in our land. Neither would Xi Jinping.
I believe that both Chinese and Russian citizens would much prefer a system where they had a voice in their future, rather than blindly trusting a leader to make choices for them.
But to get to that point they must take chances.
China is much closer to political freedom than Russia. And that is good news because China has become more important than Russia. On the other hand, it is tragic to see a nation with the potential of becoming a first rate nation in the free world, to waste it by surrendering to a single man.

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China Will Fail. The Mirror of Russia

It is up to the West, from where China has got most of its stimulus for its economic growth, to decide on the rate of decline that China will suffer.
But decline they will.
Russia is holding up a mirror for them as their invasion of Ukraine exposes their flaws.
Repressive systems that blunt the development of human beings achieve only short lived victories. And so it will be with China.
There’s a lot of talent in that country, and my take is that the political docility they have shown toward the Communist party won’t last forever.
Eventually, they will start to buck the system. They will say something like, ‘our political development is as important as our technological and industrial growth, so let’s start to let up on the restraints you have on us. How about letting us run for office?’
Of course, those who dare say that will be sent to a reeducation camp, to rewire their brains and relearn how to bow to Xi Jinping, kiss his feet and venerate his image.
But the more people object, the more likely the dissident movement will grow.
Hong Kong may end up playing a leading role in that process.
When that starts to happen, the likelihood of an invasion of Taiwan will grow, so as to keep people distracted with outside matters.
China will have to be very careful with that move because I suspect America and the West won’t let Taiwan be trampled on and be stripped of its remarkable achievements in manufacturing.
Again, the mirror of Russia will do wonders for China’s political evolution.
It is very hard to persuade smart people that life is better without freedom.
Russia has nowhere to go but down with their invasion of Ukraine.
And the Chinese will pay close attention. They will ask themselves, ‘do we want that to happen to us?’
The mirror of Russia stands to be very important for China’s future. Whether Russia declines and retrenches into greater cultural isolation or whether it shakes itself up and dares to unseat Putin.
So Xi Jinping and his select group of power holders are watching very carefully.
They are tempted to help Putin massacre more Ukrainians, but they know their image will suffer even more than it has already.
They don’t want to anger Putin either, since the man has more nuclear weapons than they do, so they’re probably assisting him in some covert manner.
China does not represent an alternative political system, just like Russia’s doesn’t either.
There’s only one political system that is viable, and that is the one that respects human beings’ right to speak their minds and exercise their freedom while respecting that of others.
Democracy, with all its flaws, is the only system that sees that as its core belief.
Any other system to govern people is a pretext to preserve the benefits of an elite at the expense of the rest.

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Push to Defeat Russia

This is the time.
I don’t think Putin would survive a defeat in Ukraine.
Russia is a demoralized nation for when they compare themselves with the rest of the world they have to wonder, ‘how come we’re not among the leading countries?’
‘How come people don’t want to come visit us?’
‘Why doesn’t anyone want to immigrate to Russia?’
‘What is missing?’
‘How come, by contrast, people are risking their lives to immigrate to America?’
‘If we can make sophisticated nuclear weapons, make vaccines, be one of the architects of the international space station, how come we make headlines only when we’re killing our neighbors? Or when we support brutal regimes like the Myanmar dictator?’
What is missing is political development.
Putin has been allowed to arrest the political maturation of Russia.
And he has done so by severely restricting the freedom of its citizens.
By sheer brutality he has held back the historical advancement of his brothers and sisters.
He’s got them hypnotized with the idea of a new Soviet Union, reclaiming a glory that was based on repression and cruelty.
But it’s all wishful thinking. There’s no turning back.
Next door, in Europe, a grand experiment in social understanding is taking place in the form of the European Union. Something similar could be happening in Russia. Instead, its citizens have opted to let one man, only one man, decide the fate of 125 million people.
It is sheer madness.
The courage of Ukrainians in fighting for their land has presented the world with a unique opportunity.
Support Ukraine with all the weapons they need and Russia can be pushed back entirely out of Ukraine. Even out of Crimea which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
A Russian defeat in Ukraine would stimulate the progressive section in the country that has not been fooled by Putin’s grandiosity.
It should be clear that China has nothing to offer in terms of political development. Their people are also in chains, in their case to a Communist party that presents itself as the celestially ordained class of people with the wisdom to dictate to the rest of the nation on how things should be done. The price? Surrender your freedom. Surrender your ability to think. We, in the party, will do the thinking for you. In other words, the Chinese model offers nothing new, but more of the same the Russians have endured for years and years.
The Western alliance should be more decisive in supporting Ukraine.
A defeated Putin will spark a movement to depose him and the likelihood is that such movement will be more pro West than pro China.
The consequences of such shift would be enormous for the prosperity of the word.
A pro western shift in Russia would likely stimulate a pro western movement in China. And the world could see the beginning of a new era, not one driven by conflict but by cooperation.
Imagine for a moment, the clout that Russia, the West and China would have working together to assist development in Africa or any impoverished region in the world?
Instead of arguing over differences that are mostly their leaders’ personal preferences.
Cult of personality is one of the most destructive forces in our world today.
There is a nefarious cult of personality today in Russia, in the person of Putin, in China, in the person of Xi Jinping, in America in the person of Donald Trump.
Cults of personality emerge in nations where the majority or a significant portion of the population ceases to think their own thoughts.
The revolt against such tendency is essential to the freedom of mankind.
Russians don’t need Putin, like Chinese don’t need Xi Jinping, like Americans don’t need Donald Trump. Nor their clones in the making.
Human beings should not surrender under any circumstances. Each life should be a life long struggle to assert who we are, to express each person’s uniqueness.

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2024 Elections

The Republican party has a steep uphill battle for the 2024 presidential elections.
The footprint that Trump has left will be hard to erase.
That’s how toxic it has been.
The fact that Trump is still in the running for the nomination is baffling, but that’s clear evidence of how confused the party is.
Immigration is the central issue.
Trump seized on it to rally support but couldn’t come up with an answer to the problem.
Immigration needs limits. Enforceable limits. We need borders and the means to sustain them.
But we can’t do without immigration.
The faction of the Republican party who wants to severely restrict immigration would cripple the nation if they had their say.
It is true that we need to bolster the opportunities for advancement for Americans now in the lower earning rungs of our society, but we still need to keep open the doors for qualified immigrants to come to this country.
This is our advantage over China and Russia. They are closed off to immigration. That is hurting them.
The force that immigration is has a transformative effect on any nation. And it is overwhelmingly a positive one.
Europe has been struggling with immigration for years and, to their credit, they’re still at it.
China and Russia just choose not to deal with the problem. And it is their loss.
Looking at the Republican field for the nomination for president, I see little to suggest that a Republican candidate can go up successfully against Biden, if he chooses to run, or another democratic candidate, say Harris or Newsom.
Republican candidates are failing on the issues. Overturning Roe vs Wade will do little to invigorate the party. The majority of American women want to keep their right to choose.
Had Trump been elected instead of Biden, Putin would by now have annexed Ukraine and invited Trump to the ceremonies.
In the press conference that would have followed, Trump would have been asked by a reporter if he thought Putin had the right to take over Ukraine, and Trump would have said, ‘I don’t see why not, he was feeling encircled by NATO. We need to give him his space.’
And then Putin would have walked over and handed him a Cossack hat, as a tribute to his far reaching understanding of how the world works. And Trump would have put it on. Then said, ‘Look, Russia is a great country, and they need their space. By not arming the resistance in Ukraine we have saved many lives, and America’s closer ties with Russia will help us deal with the menace of China.’
Putin would have smiled and thought to himself, ‘We need to get this guy reelected a third term.’
Trump and freedom don’t mix. His legacy of obscurantism will last for some years.
Still, there are enlightened sectors in the Republican party who might push forward a sane candidate to run against the democrats. I think that candidate would be John Kasich.

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Russia, Turn West!

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This is the time. The time to break the chains that Putin has wrapped around your neck.
You are not the nation you could be.
You have the capabilities to stand as one of the first nations in the world, but you are not because to do so you need freedom, and freedom is not something Putin is willing to give you.
Your leader is determined to enlarge his personal power, not the power of the rest of Russians.
To do so he has chosen to invade Ukraine because they did not kneel before him.
That is what you are doing, Russia, kneeling before Putin because you do not dare to raise your voice.
You have gone so long without hearing your voice that you’ve forgotten what it sounds like.
That happens in dictatorships.
It is happening in your neighbor China, where Xi Jinping and his gang keep constant surveillance and restrictions on their citizens. They say that it’s in the interest of a greater future, when China will dominate the world. But freedoms restricted lead to impaired development in human beings.
Russia, you need to get back your voice.
The world needs you.
You went for centuries under the foot of Czars, then under Stalin and those who followed.
Only for a brief period, under Gorbachev, did you smell freedom, only to have it disappear under Putin.
Think of the enormous role you could play in world history if you chose to turn West.
You could choose whatever system of government you wanted. A system like the British have, or we here in America, or the French or the Germans or the Finns or the Swedes.
But you would be free.
Personally, I would be partial to a federal system of government that would make you the United States of Russia.
And you would enrich the world with all your talent and resources.
You would break out of the cultural isolation that Putin likes to keep you in because it suits his purposes.
And by turning West, then China would have to moderate its plans for world domination because they would become impossible to achieve.
This is the time to turn West.
For your development, for your economic growth and the realization of your potential as a nation.
Think for a moment of the cruelty that Putin has inflicted on Ukrainians and Russians. Sending them to their death because he has a dream of a larger Russia. But you are already large enough territorially. What you need is to unleash your talents, break out of you isolation and join the rest of the world fighting for democracy and the affirmation of human beings.
Russia, the world needs you.
This is the time to rise and retire Putin. Send him to his dacha for a permanent vacation.
Russia deserves to be all it can be and the world will be better off for it. Just do it!

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