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...
John Bolton, the career bureaucratic climber who has, shall we say, “forged” a reputation for himself as a fearless, tough-as-nails military man, has decided, as usual, to add his two cents to America’s current foreign policy discussion, and in the process revealed everything you needed to know — or were hoping not to have to admit — about the U.S. government’s true aims...
“Why should the world risk nuclear annihilation over what is essentially just a border dispute between Russia and Ukraine?” So ask the Glenn Greenwalds and Tucker Carlsons of the world. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that such people are not being directly instructed by the Kremlin to pose the question that way, but that it represents their sincere, independent view...
Here is Rand Paul, trying to score libertarian points against the Biden administration’s policy of supporting Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s invasion: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): “The countries that have been attacked, Georgia and Ukraine, were part of the Soviet Union … since the 1920s.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “That does not give Russia the right to attack them.” pic.twitter.com/jnlRP6wAsN — The Recount...
I have taught a significant number of foreign students in Korea who have come here for any number of reasons, from participating in formal academic exchange programs to being drawn by a fantasizing obsession with K-pop singers. I have enjoyed many memorable experiences with these visitors to my classes over the years. Recently, however, two particular cases occur to me often. One was...
Russian forces are withdrawing from the area around Kiev. This is a good sign on its face, and a testament to the will of the Ukrainian population, the courage and competence of their leaders, and the effectiveness of their military. Having said that, it is far from obvious to me that this retreat is an unqualified good, given that the man who ordered...
The recent actions of the United States of America and the Russian Federation with regard to Afghanistan and Ukraine, respectively, offer us a tidy summary of some essential differences between a declining democracy and a declining tyranny — differences which, characteristically, the tyranny recognizes and hopes to exploit, but the democracy does not. Democracy regards twenty years as too long to sustain a...
Congressman Adam Kinzinger, or “Little Adam,” as kook fringe (i.e., Trump-supporting) blowhard Madison Cawthorn once called him, has taken another step away from the Idiot Party mainstream, by doing what almost no prominent Republican has dared to do. He has called Israel’s government to account for its current stand and rhetoric on Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked scorched earth campaign against a peaceful sovereign country. ...
I have nothing new to say about Vladimir Putin’s official international media celebrity of choice, Tucker Carlson, or Carlson’s official Putin talking point mouthpiece, “Colonel” Douglas Macgregor. The truth is that after two months of explaining and analyzing their duplicity for Putin, their alternative reality optics for Putin, their historical revisionism for Putin, their overt lies for Putin, their blatant cheering for Putin’s...
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