Enjoying the view from Limbo
Vladimir Putin is not Russia, nor is he “the Russian people.” He is a ruthless dictator who murders or imprisons his most popular opponents and critics, propagandizes his subjects out of any clear alternative perspectives on life and the global political situation, and exploits the poverty and hopelessness that he himself has fostered to cajole the weak and desperate “masses” into viewing him...
Liberty's Labors Lost / What is The Establishment? / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published June 3, 2022 · Last modified June 4, 2022
I just read a very sober and balanced assessment of the conceivable outcomes in Ukraine, written by one Andrew Latham, a very sober professor of International Relations and member of a very sober-sounding Washington think tank calling itself “Defense Priorities.” For “Defense” in that name, read “Surrender”; for “Priorities,” read “Rationalizations.” For Professor Latham’s short essay is a wonderful object lesson in that...
What is The Establishment? / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published April 25, 2022 · Last modified April 26, 2022
Today, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken wasted several hours of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s time by playing tag-along following Boris Johnson’s attention-grabbing visit to Kyiv last week. We all know by now that the Biden administration is hellbent on helping Ukraine do just enough to prevent Vladimir Putin from achieving his “aims” in that country, but without going...
Numerous Western “leaders,” à la France’s Emmanuel Macron, are insistent today that one should avoid using overly harsh terms in describing Vladimir Putin or his actions in Ukraine, or suggesting that regime change in Russia is a suitable goal, since such language threatens to escalate the situation. Avoiding escalation is standard and perhaps reasonable rhetoric during a time of diplomatic breakdown or “heightened...
Liberty's Labors Lost / What is The Establishment? / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published March 28, 2022
Five seconds after daring to say in public the most obvious and uncomplicated truth on the planet today, namely that Vladimir Putin should not remain in power, Joe Biden’s administration was in panic mode trying to “downplay” and “walk back” that remark, fearing how it would be interpreted. Fearing how Putin might respond. Fearing how the statement might affect future negotiations with Putin...
A crisis is ongoing. A European country is currently under occupation by an expansionist Russian tyranny with designs on gradually reestablishing the Soviet empire. This country has clearly become the front and focal point in a war between an increasingly totalitarian regime — which, lest we forget, is led by a former apparatchik of the Soviet Union itself, a man who has frequently...
French President Emmanuel Macron, a classic little nothing who pretends to importance by proudly serving as Europe’s message delivery boy, has bravely submitted a resolution to the UN Security Council begging for permission from Vladimir Putin to “guarantee unhindered humanitarian access to meet the urgent needs of the remaining population in Ukraine.” They did nothing to help Ukraine prepare for this unjust and...
The United Nations Secretary-General actually used his speech addressing Russia’s unprovoked attack on a sovereign neighbor to use one of the stupidest and most corrupt bromides of this age: “Give peace a chance.” That phrase was a childish and ignorant denial of common sense back when John Lennon coined it. Under the current circumstances, it is an outrage against the human race. “Give...
You cannot make this stuff up. Here is the first sentence of a new Politico rah-rah piece on the United Nations’ “tough” response to Vladimir Putin’s military invasion of Ukraine: U.N. Security Council members had one clear message for Russian President Vladimir Putin: We know what you’re up to, and you need to quit it now — or else. “Or else” what? We...
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...
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