As Usual, the Scum Rises to the Top
After four years of Donald Trump’s faithful service as Vladimir Putin’s lackey and not-so-covert agent, one might have hoped that Joe Biden, who pretended to strike a less forgiving tone toward the Putin dictatorship as an easy way of distancing himself from the alt-right Putin shoeshine regime of the Trumpkins, would do at least slightly better at repelling the impending Russian invasion of Europe. One might have hoped for that, that is, if one did not already know all too well that the entire American political establishment is a cowardly corruptocracy the likes of which the world has rarely known.
So it is that I read this headline five minutes ago, via the dutiful Democratic propagandists at NBC News: “Biden agrees ‘in principle’ to Putin meeting if Russia does not invade Ukraine.”
But Russia has already invaded Ukraine within the past twenty-four hours — and even that is a misrepresentation of the facts, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started in earnest in 2014, with the annexation of Crimea. In other words, the Biden administration, like the rest of the “democratic West” and its slavish media, has begun the usual game of optics slide, conceding ever more to totalitarianism, all the while publicly declaring that there will be “severe consequences” if the totalitarians dare to push this any further. Putin is taking Ukraine, piece by piece. He will take all of it, as long as the only real resistance comes from within Ukraine. And then — listen carefully, Tucker fans — he will move on to the next country on his fully mapped-out target list, while Western leaders continue to promise that this time they “really mean it,” even as through their deeds they prove for the umpteenth time that they do not mean it. Putin is a cretin and a thug. He is also smart enough to recognize Neville Chamberlain in a police lineup — especially when the entire lineup consists of nothing but clones of Neville Chamberlain.
But that’s not fair. Neville Chamberlain was not a man who truly hated his country, or freedom. He was just a dupe and a coward, prepared to sell out other nations to protect his own, and lacking the precedent of true totalitarian aggression to guide his judgment. Nothing so honorable may be said for the “leaders” of today, who have no historical excuses for failing to see what they are looking at, and who have already established at home that their own real political aims are not so very different from those of the man they are tasked by historical necessity with opposing.
One adage that our last century of human civilization has proved beyond any doubt is that it is not only the cream that rises to the top. The scum also rises — particularly when there is no cream to compete with it.
I close with this simple statement of what would be the obvious, if the world still had eyes, and a brain with which to process their data:
Obama, teasing Romney for saying Russia was a geopolitical threat, then gifting Putin the infamous Reset. Macron, a pathetic dupe & messenger boy. Merkel, “separating business and politics”. The list is endless. All the power in the world but not an ounce of courage.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) February 22, 2022
