#Democracy vs. Tyranny

[tmarshconnors]

Democracy According to the Left 

In the latest French elections, Marine Le Pen and her National Rally achieved a remarkable victory by winning every single department, except Paris. Garnering the most votes, one would naturally assume that such a resounding success would place them at the forefront of the political landscape. However, despite this overwhelming support, the National Rally found themselves relegated to third place. This raises an important question about the state of democracy as practiced by the Left – is it truly democratic, or is it veering into the realm of tyranny?

The Illusion of Democratic Process

At its core, democracy is supposed to be the embodiment of the people’s will, a system where every vote counts and the majority's voice guides the direction of the nation. Yet, the French electoral system has revealed cracks in this ideal. Despite the National Rally’s sweeping victories across most departments, the complexities of the system allowed for a political maneuver that essentially silenced the voice of millions of French voters.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen such outcomes. The Left often champions democracy, but when the results don’t align with their vision, they find ways to manipulate the system. It’s a pattern that raises concerns about the integrity of democratic processes under left-leaning governance. Is it truly democracy when the clear mandate of the people is overridden by political engineering?

A Tale of Electoral Engineering

The French electoral system’s two-round process allows for alliances and tactical voting that can skew results in favor of the establishment. In this case, traditional parties banded together to keep the National Rally out of power, despite their strong showing in the polls. This isn’t an isolated incident but rather a tactic increasingly employed to maintain the status quo.

Such practices undermine the very essence of democracy. When political elites manipulate electoral outcomes to preserve their dominance, they effectively disenfranchise large segments of the population. This isn’t the rule of the people; it’s the rule of a privileged few who decide what is best for everyone else.

The Double Standard

Imagine if the roles were reversed. If a right-leaning party employed similar tactics to suppress a left-wing victory, there would be an outcry, and rightly so. But when the Left does it, it’s often framed as a necessary measure to protect democracy from ‘extremism.’ This double standard is not only hypocritical but dangerous. It sets a precedent that justifies the erosion of democratic principles in the name of protecting them.

This selective application of democratic norms leads to a slippery slope where the end justifies the means. Today, it’s about keeping Marine Le Pen out of power. Tomorrow, it could be about suppressing any dissenting voices that challenge the prevailing narrative. It’s a path that leads away from true democracy and toward tyranny.

A Warning for the Future

The marginalization of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is a symptom of a broader issue. When democratic processes are subverted, and the will of the people is ignored, it breeds discontent and distrust in the system. People begin to feel that their votes don’t matter, that their voices aren’t heard. This disillusionment can have serious consequences, leading to social unrest and a fracturing of the political landscape.

For democracy to thrive, it must be allowed to function as intended. This means respecting the outcomes of elections, even when they don’t align with the preferences of those in power. It means ensuring that every vote counts and that political engineering doesn’t override the will of the people.

Marine Le Pen and her National Rally’s experience in the recent French elections is a stark reminder of the fragility of democracy. When political elites manipulate systems to maintain control, they undermine the very principles they claim to uphold. This is not democracy; it’s tyranny masquerading as democratic process.

As we move forward, it’s crucial to safeguard our democratic institutions from such subversion. The will of the people must be paramount, and every effort should be made to ensure that democracy is more than just a name – it should be a living, breathing practice that genuinely reflects the voice of the populace. Only then can we truly call ourselves democratic.

[tomorrowusa]

« All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of an autocratic state. There is a bad man at the top. He controls the army and the police. The army and the police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the twenty-first century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality.

Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy but by sophisticated networks relying on kleptocratic financial structures, a complex of security services— military, paramilitary, police—and technological experts who provide surveillance, propaganda, and disinformation. The members of these networks are connected not only to one another within a given autocracy but also to networks in other autocratic countries, and sometimes in democracies too. Corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another. The police in one country may arm, equip, and train the police in many others. The propagandists share resources—the troll farms and media networks that promote one dictator’s propaganda can also be used to promote another’s—as well as themes: the degeneracy of democracy, the stability of autocracy, the evil of America. »

– Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum at Substack quoting from her soon to be released book Autocracy, Inc..

You can read several more paragraphs from Autocracy, Inc. at the Substack link above. Her book will be published on the 23rd; if you're within distance of Washington, DC she will be doing a free book reading and Q&A on Friday July 26th at Politics and Prose. She's a good writer and speaker. I've read two of her previous books and can vouch for their quality.

The war in Ukraine is not some remote conflict that idiots like J.D. Vance or Neville Chamberlain might dismiss out of stupidity. Ukraine is just one arena in a worldwide clash between liberal democracy and kleptocratic tyranny.

[intelligentchristianlady]

A neighbor of mine was among those who landed in Normandy on D-Day. He is 101.

“Every soldier who stormed the beach, who dropped by parachute or landed by glider; every sailor who manned the thousands of ships and landing craft; every aviator who destroyed German-controlled air fields, bridges, and railroads—all—all were backed by other brave Americans, including hundreds of thousands of people of color and women who courageously served despite unjust limitations on what they could do for their nation."

– President Joe Biden, speaking at the Normandy Omaha Cemetery

[amaliazeichnerin]

Something political, or love vs. hate

Something political.

A very good blog by Ruth Ben-Ghiat.

A quote: "Love insists that we are precious beings who deserve leaders who respect us and promote our well-being, not tyrants who deceive, rob, jail and kill us. Love supports resistance in places where freedom has been lost, and it can also help endangered democracies like our own to reverse course."

[contemplatingoutlander]

JOURNALISTIC CHOICES: Telling the Truth vs. "Bothsidesism"

Ben Raderstorf does a great job in this article discussing the dilemma modern journalism has in covering a lying, dangerous authoritarian like Donald Trump, without "appearing partisan." Raderstorf argues against bothsidesism, and in favor of good journalists just simply telling the truth.

[T]he best way for independent, fact-based media to win back the audiences they’re losing to polarization is to not chase them.... But rather, to double-down on independence, objectivity, and honesty. To report reality as it is and to let the chips fall where they may. To draw a hard distinction between the normal political jockeying of healthy democracy and actions that threaten our system of government.   Back in 2022, in response to questions from reporters about how to discern between those two things, we wrote a report on how experts understand threats to democracy: The Authoritarian Playbook: How reporters can contextualize and cover authoritarian threats as distinct from politics-as-usual. 

"Modern autocrats don't crush journalism — they corrupt it." 

Raderstorf also talks about how 21st century autocrats like Viktor Orbán (who is a role model for Trump) apply pressure in subtle ways to eventually "corrupt" journalism.

These days, many autocrats don’t just smash printing presses, throw reporters in jail, and be done with it. Often they pursue a more nuanced, and more insidious, strategy.   With a combination of intimidation, coercion, and financial manipulation, they slowly corrode the independence and autonomy of the press until it ceases to be a meaningful check on power. The media still exists; it’s just an empty shell, a useful facade.   Put differently, modern autocrats don’t crush journalism — they corrupt it. 

[See more below the cut about the role of "anticipatory obedience" and the changes in leadership at CNN and The Washington Post.]

[edited]

"ANTICIPATORY OBEDIENCE": An Explanation for Why CNN and The Washington Post Changed Their Leadership

Raderstorf mentions how the two journalistic outlets that Trump targeted most vehemently as president are the two that eventually replaced their leadership--and as a result, weakened their journalistic integrity.

In an article this week in the Columbia Journalism Review, my colleagues Ian Bassin... and Maximillian Potter ... dive into several case studies. They connect troubling dots suggesting that Donald Trump deployed the Orbán strategy in his first term to greater effect than many realize. [...] In their piece, Ian and Max explore the two major instances in Trump’s first term when he attempted to wield the powers of the presidency against journalists for coverage he didn’t like. First, by threatening to block a proposed merger between CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, and AT&T. Second, by looking to raise shipping rates on Amazon, whose owner, Jeff Bezos, also owns the Washington Post.  In both cases, Trump mostly failed to carry out his threats. But… it’s also true that both CNN and the Post subsequently went through high-profile leadership shakeups at least partly in response to Trump. For CNN, this was Chris Licht’s short-lived tenure and disastrous efforts to make the network “more neutral.” For the Post, it was Bezos installing a new publisher: “Will Lewis, a former Rupert Murdoch executive who has spent most of his career in right-wing media.” [...] Timothy Snyder writes in On Tyranny that autocratic leaders often succeed simply because the media, business leaders, and civil society look ahead to possible repression and move preemptively towards self-preservation. What he calls “anticipatory obedience."

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Michael de Adder, Halifax Chronicle Herald

* * * *

Trump promises to eliminate future elections

July 29, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

Last Friday, Trump told Christian rally-goers that “You won’t have to vote any more” if they elect Trump in 2024.

Let that sink in. A presidential candidate promised to eliminate future elections.

The media yawned.

Actually, the media ignored the story (except for The Guardian) until commentators on social media and the Harris Campaign shamed journalists into acknowledging Trump's antidemocratic threat—which they did in a dismissive, begrudging manner.

It is tiresome to highlight the media’s failings, but this incident is so egregious that it is important on many levels. Most importantly, it underscores that Democrats cannot relent in their effort to warn the American people that Trump hopes to end fundamental democratic norms—like the peaceful, regular transfer of power as prescribed by the Constitution.

Among the issues that should drive voters to the polls in 2024, Trump’s repeated promises to end democracy should be the most alarming. But concepts like “democracy” and “tyranny” strike many voters as “abstract.” Taking away the right to vote is not abstract; doing so would render all other rights illusory.

Let’s turn this incident against Trump by convincing voters that Trump really, truly wants to eliminate the right to vote after 2024. And we must not let him (or his surrogates) weasel out of the plain meaning of his words.

What did Trump say?

 At a rally in Florida on Friday, Trump said,

Christians, get out and vote! Just this time – you won’t have to do it any more. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians. I love you. Get out – you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.

See The Guardian, Trump tells supporters they won’t have to vote in the future: ‘It’ll be fixed!’.

Like most of Trump's statements, it is simultaneously inscrutable and blazingly obvious. He is promising the end of democracy if he is elected. “In four years, you won’t have to vote again.”

The same words uttered by most other politicians might be susceptible to innocent interpretations. But those words uttered by this president can mean only one thing: He wants to eliminate elections in America. He tried to override the will of the people in 2020 by canceling their votes through coup and insurrection. He says he will do so again if he is re-elected. We should believe him.

To repeat: A presidential candidate has promised that 2024 will be the last time that Americans will vote because “everything will be fixed.” That is the equivalent of a five-alarm fire for democracy.

How did the GOP, the media, and the Harris campaign respond? You can probably predict their responses, but let’s look for ourselves.

The GOP response

In typical GOP fashion, the GOP response was (a) he didn’t mean what he said, (b) he said the opposite of what you think you heard, and (c) Trump says weird things all the time, so chill out!

The typical Republican response was delivered by New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who laughed off the statement by saying, (a) it was “hyperbolic,” (b) Trump was trying to make the point that “We want everyone to vote in all elections,” and (c) it was a classic “Trumpism.”

Saying that the statement was hyperbolic and “a Trumpism” are. not serious responses because they do not address the substance of what Trump actually said. Trump incited an insurrection by telling people to “Fight like hell” moments before the attack on the Capitol.” We are long past claiming that Trump's words should not be taken seriously and literally.

Claiming that Trump's statement means the exact opposite of what Trump said is depraved. Sununu’s interpretation of “We want everyone to vote in all elections” vs. Trump's “You’re not gonna have to vote again” is depraved. The depravity of Sununu’s perverse interpretation is not diminished because Sununu delivered the lie with a hearty laugh.

Other Trump apologists (on social media) argued that Trump was saying only that Republicans would not need Christian evangelical votes after 2024 because Trump would do such a great job of fixing all problems in America, “you’re not gonna have to vote.” That explanation makes no sense; even if Trump “fixed” all the problems in America in the next four years, the Constitution still requires an election in 2028.

There is simply no reasonable interpretation of Trump's words other than his declaration that in four years, he intends to eliminate elections (if he can).

The media’s response

As noted above, The Guardian gave serious coverage to Trump's statement. US media outlets, not so much. See, for example, Lucian K. Truscott IV’s description of the NYTimes’ pathetic response. As Truscott notes in his Substack, the Times relegated the statements to “a few lines in a wrap-up piece about what’s happening in the presidential campaign . . . and they buried it on the Times website.” The Times then breezily moved on to pedestrian coverage of the campaigns as if they were reporting the details of an itinerary rather than one of the most shocking statements ever by a major-party candidate for the presidency.

Perhaps even worse was the pathetic interview of Chris Sununu by Martha Raddatz on ABC. Raddatz asked Sununu, “What the heck did he [Trump] mean there [in the statement]?” As noted above, Sununu responded,

(a)  The statement was hyperbolic; (b)  Trump meant that everyone should vote in every election; and (c)  That statement is a Trumpism.

Sununu’s pathetic response was enough to satisfy Radattz, whose follow-up question was, “Ok. Let's turn to President Biden and Kamala Harris.”

I won’t pick on Raddatz (much). Almost every journalist on mainstream media is as pathetic as Raddatz. The inability to ask follow-up questions to ludicrous rationalizations of attacks on democracy is staggering. Most are entertainers, not journalists. Their presence on “news” shows is insulting to their viewers.

Raddatz’s failure to challenge Sununu’s answer and her immediate transition to a question about President Biden and Kamala Harris demonstrates the media’s dangerous addiction to mindless “balance” and false equivalency. Nothing Kamala Harris did over the weekend deserves to be in the same news block as a story about a presidential candidate promising to end the need for elections. Nothing.

Having watched the media fail miserably for seven years with Trump, nothing should surprise us. But the guy tried to overturn one election already and is saying he will do it again. What will it take for the media to realize that Trump is a unique threat to democracy who deserves coverage that applies only to aspiring dictators?

Even if the Times and Raddatz believed that Trump's remarks had a benign explanation, they failed to acknowledge the more plausible, malign interpretation. Instead, they were willing to assume that Trump's remarks were harmless “Trumpisms.” They are not. We saw what happened after Trump told his followers on January 6, 2021: “We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”

So, continue writing those letters to the editor and comments to stories highlighting the media’s failings. And become a messenger for Harris by amplifying her campaign’s messaging. Read on!

The Harris Campaign’s response

Kamala Harris’s campaign organization has been reacting to Trump's missteps and threats like a rapid response force to each. Early Saturday morning, the Harris campaign posted a clip of Trump's comments and attached the following statement:

Statement on Trump's Promise to End Democracy When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it. Our democracy is under assault by criminal Donald Trump: After the last election Trump lost, he sent a mob to overturn the results. This campaign, he has promised violence if he loses, the end of our elections if he wins, and the termination of the Constitution to empower him to be a dictator to enact his dangerous Project 2025 agenda on America. Donald Trump wants to take America backward, to a politics of hate, chaos, and fear —this November America will unite around Vice President Kamala Harris to stop him.

The Harris campaign’s statement is spot-on for several reasons. First, the campaign issued the statement just after noon on Saturday morning, showing a willingness and ability to rebut Trump quickly. By responding within the same news cycle, the Harris campaign shaped the social media response, which ultimately prodded the major media to acknowledge Trump's threat.

Second, the Harris campaign identified Trump's threats in plain language, including

“Trump's Promise to End Democracy.” “Last election Trump sent a mob to overturn the results.” “He has promised violence if he loses” “He has promised the end of elections if he wins” “He has promised to terminate the Constitution” “To become a dictator” “To enact dangerous project 2025”

Dangerous threats demand plain language. The Harris campaign rose to the challenge.

The campaign’s statement was strong in another respect: In identifying Trump as a threat to democracy, it identified Kamala Harris as the point of unity to stop Trump. A very smart move! Kamala Harris is giving Democrats the antidote to Trump's cult of personality. The campaign is fashioning Kamala Harris as a champion of democracy. And it is working!

Concluding Thoughts

Trump's threats present a dilemma. Should we take them seriously? Or does our attention give them credence and heft they do not carry on their own? As with most things in life, there is tension in truth. We must take Trump's threats literally and seriously. But we must not ascribe superpowers to Trump or self-executing inevitability to his threats. By taking his threats seriously, we can prevent them from coming to fruition. So, do not despair or cower in fear. Raise the alarm as we work to defeat Trump and stop his dark plans.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to rally around Kamala Harris. She held her first fundraiser in Pittsfield, MA at the Colonial Theatre. The event was sold out, with an overflow crowd in front of the theater. Kamala Harris spoke after an all-star warm-up that included former Governor Deval Patrick, Senators Warren and Markey, Rep. Neal, and Heather Cox Richardson.

According to those in attendance, the evening was “electric.” The crowd was so enthusiastic, Kamala Harris had difficulty quieting the cheers so she could say “Thank you.” She gave a great speech and pumped up the crowd even further.

In eight short days, Kamala Harris has unified and inspired Democrats in a way that has defied expectations of pundits and career politicians. She is doing so at the precise moment that Trump's veneer of invincibility is cracking. We need to sustain the wave of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris and spread it to others—so that we can push Trump’s downward trajectory past the tipping point of no return. We can do that!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[srisrisriddd]

Happy SunDay FunDay

Democracy --> Tyranny Demagogues

Vs Wisecracy Ancient Indian Guru System

Cartoon Comic Anime Meme Philosophy Inspiration Of

Bhagwan Sri Sri Sri Dr Devang H Dattani ji

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[mswyrr]

sejanus plinth: doing good vs feeling good

It's necessary to start off by saying that Strabo, his father, really failed him. He brought Sejanus to an entirely new culture at an age when that is difficult. Not only that, but it was a culture, in the Capitol, that Sejanus had every reason to be repulsed by and yet Strabo didn't provide his son with support in adjusting.

Strabo should have arranged special tutoring, arranged advantageous friendships, and provided his son with mentoring and emotional support in making the adjustment. He failed his kid and, since Sejanus dies before he gets to grow up, the fault is mostly with his parents. And given that Strabo and his wife seem to have a marriage where "the man" makes all the decisions and Ma was treated more like another dependent than an equal partner, the responsibility falls on Strabo.

All of that said: Sejanus could have done a lot of good long-term and instead he focused on short-term making himself feel good.

He was the heir of a munitions empire, the heir to the power of District 2, which is the military might the Capitol relies on to maintain control. If he'd been more strategic, he could have ended the tyranny in a matter of decades by decapitating their military power.

He was also "best friends" with a Snow, someone with the family name and social savvy to become president one day. If Sejanus had effectively cultivated that relationship--like, say, noticing that his best friend's family was going hungry/barely scraping by and helped out--they could have worked together to basically change the place without too much bloodshed, the president and the guy with the munitions power. By the time they were in their 80s (Snow's age at the time of Katniss' first Games), the place could have been a democracy.

My read of Coriolanus is that he's not ideologically driven, he's driven by what gives him comfort, safety, and control. A better person than Dr Gaul could have offered him those things, but it would have to be a better person who possessed those things. And the only one with that was Sejanus, but he didn't know how to use it.

Instead, Sejanus consistently makes moves about morality that are about his short-term emotional satisfaction. They're about feeling good. He says things instead of holding his tongue and actually making things happen. He makes dramatic gestures that are easily subverted (going into the Arena). And all of these keep costing other people--his father and Coriolanus--in ways that further diminish his ability to do long-term good.

All of this is why I don't think he's like Katniss Everdeen. True, they both seem to struggle with social skills, a situation I sympathize with. But it is possible to learn to at least recognize and deal with those kind of politics as someone who isn't naturally gifted and Katniss does often desperately try to learn what she needs to do on that level. Sejanus seems not to be interested at all; he refuses to take what little guidance someone is offering, when Coriolanus points things out. Katniss actually tries to listen to Peeta and other people who are trying to give her a clue. She holds back in moments when doing something she wants to do would have knock-on effects politically and for others. Sejanus seemingly refuses to think of the consequences, politically or for others.

She also has none of his potential power. Sejanus had a tremendous pool of power, money, and privilege at his command; he is the heir of of it and he wasted it all. Katniss had nothing and yet did the best she could with it, often prioritizing doing good over feeling good, or else she would have just, like, shot someone instead of shooting the apple out of the pig's mouth that one time.

If Katniss had his kind of power available to her, I think she would have done better with it.

It's not his fault, and he's not a bad guy or anything. I like the character. I think he's well written and interesting and I feel for him. And Strabo is the ultimate one responsible for putting his son in such a no-win situation, but Sejanus, while feeling morals deeply, doesn't actually take advantage of all the ways he had at his disposal to actually make Panem a better place. And that means that he fails entirely to do good in the pursuit of making himself feel good and righteous.

And it's a bitter, horrifying irony, that Snow ends up the heir to that huge pool of power because Strabo failed his son and Sejanus did not have the natural social social and political insight to manage despite being failed. On some level, Strabo wanted a son who was naturally pragmatic and socially gifted like Snow so much that he refused to actually raise and love the son he had, so Snow is what he ended up with.

It's pretty cool that, in the "friendship" between Sejanus and Coriolanus, Collins set up all the ingredients for the two of them to remake and improve Panem and yet the tragedy is that, due to circumstances and personalities and choices, that possibility dies in District 12 on the hanging tree and another, far darker, future is born.

[short-wooloo]

I have thoughts on the constant assertion by thrawn stans that Dave filoni "retconned" him from being "morally gray" into just an evil villain

This claim mostly comes from perceived dissonance between thrawn's portrayal in Rebels/Ahsoka vs his portrayal in his novels

Ok, 1.

Rebels/Ahsoka and any other movie/show thrawn may appear in are higher canon, they are more canon then the books, if there's a contradiction between them, movie/show wins, or put simply, the movies/shows are canon to the books, but the books are not canon to the movies/shows, the books must fit with the movies/shows, not vice versa

And 2.

I think people entirely miss the point of the new thrawn trilogy

Aside from the fact that Rebels came first, and is thus the primary source for thrawn's characterization, the books are in the past tense (even the ones that are supposed to run parallel with the Rebels seasons, since they would have been written after those seasons were, any inconsistencies are the fault of the books)

They're prequels

Thrawn's characterization in them is who he WAS, his characterization in Rebels/Ahsoka/future high canon is who he became

You're not supposed to take away from the books that thrawn is a "morally grey but ultimately good character who dies bad things for good reasons" (and that "fIlOnI rEtCoNnEd tHrAwN"), the takeaway should be "look how far he's fallen, look at what he's become, look at what the empire turns people into, look at what constant rationalizations of "the ends justify the means" leads to, look at how the dark side can even corrupt and twist people who cannot use it"

Thrawn before he joined the empire was inclined to believe that democracy was bad and only by brutally forcing it can there be order and "peace", the chiss ascendancy is a xenophobic authoritarian military-oligarchy, it has a lot of common ground with the empire (and it's successor states)

And that brings us to what the empire is

In the empire, bad people are rewarded, you cannot get ahead without being so, tyranny, brutality, and ruthlessness are encouraged, it gets you promotions, authority, and favor of the emperor, it's a system designed to bring out the worst in people, good people in the empire end up powerless, dead, or they turn against it

And thrawn is a grand admiral, one of the highest ranks in the empire, the only people who definitely had more authority than thrawn were tarkin, Vader, and Palpatine

He could not have gotten there without committing to the empire and it's values

Maybe he did have a good reason for joining the empire, maybe he really did believe he was protecting his people

But that all rings hollow to the people who were oppressed by the empire that he supported

[xdistorted-realityx]

Please, help Venezuela.

Nicolás Maduro's regime is murdering Venezuelans through paramilitary groups called collectives. The national police are kidnapping and disappearing people who were table witnesses in the presidential elections of July 28, because they do not want to accept their defeat. Since July 29, spontaneous protests have emerged throughout the country, and Maduro responds with bullets. In less than 72 hours, state security forces and government paramilitary groups have murdered dozens of young people, including minors, and injured hundreds of people. Please, we beg for international help. They are murdering us. This is no longer about left vs. right. This is freedom vs. tyranny. Democracy vs. dictatorship.

[dolphin1812]

Riot and insurrection are defined by minority vs majority, with insurrection being a just movement by the majority to maintain its democratic power and rioting being a minority using violence against the people (the exception being colonialism because Hugo believed in “civilizing” missions, as illustrated by his remarks on Columbus). Through this link, they’re also defined by their tie to progress: insurrection is part of progress and is good, and rioting looks to the past and is therefore bad. 

Hugo’s comments on writing under tyranny are fascinating in the context of Napoleon III. Hugo was exiled, but he was still conscious of how censorship could affect his work in France. The dense prose mentioned, then, could be this novel! Its themes are concealed, to an extent, by its length and its digressions. Hugo outright tells us his opinions (like he’s doing now), but after reading so much, it can be difficult to keep track of without a very close reading (which is made difficult by length, too – even though the goal of these posts has been to close-read each chapter, there will always be chapters that I understand better and others that are incomprehensible. A censor needing to read this quickly would be very lost!). Hugo’s prose doesn’t seem concise at all, but perhaps he felt that it was appropriate for the breadth of what he covered, and that he felt he learned to better articulate himself with this consciousness.

(Or maybe Hugo wants a republic so he can digress freely. Maybe digressions are democracy)

Despotism being the same under a “genius” feels like a jab at Napoleon I, too, making it an even harsher critique of the less respected (by Hugo) Napoleon III! And it’s also a return to Louis Philippe, who – while a good person – still suffers from the flaw of being a king in a France that doesn’t want one.

And he has a point that suffrage is wonderful because it offers an alternative to both insurrection and rioting! If the people have a non-violent and legitimate way of expressing their opinions, then they become less necessary. Hugo’s dream of them disappearing is a lot – protest is seen as another right alongside suffrage – but it’s a nice ideal in that it imagines a democracy that functions perfectly and thus only needs the vote to decide well.

And unfortunately, Hugo’s right about the reluctance to distinguish between the two by those in power. We’re back to animal symbolism, but this time, it’s between an animal and a person. The “dog” expected to serve the person is beaten for disobedience, leaving no alternative but to transform into a ferocious lion capable of resisting. 

I love that Hugo basically says “June 1832 was insurrection, but there’s a good chance I’ll forget and say riot in the future; just know I don’t mean that politically.” It’s almost a form of self-awareness over how many words he uses to describe most things!

He’s making a claim to historical accuracy, too, and one grounded in the perspective of the protesters. The judicial records he mentions would have been from their trials and, therefore, from the point of view of a state threatened by them. Hugo’s fictionalized account continues to give a voice to those neglected by those narratives. 

[mariacallous]

The Russian presidential elections are weeks away, and notwithstanding the surprising success—and hurried disqualification—of an anti-war candidate, the outcome is foreordained: Six more years of Vladimir Putin. The impending reelection of the man U.S. President Joe Biden called a “murderous dictator” and “pure thug” raises the question of the Biden administration’s Russia policy. Does the United States want a democratized Russia? Does Biden hope for Putin’s ouster? Without Putin, would Russia’s alliance with the People’s Republic of China crumble? Would the new axis between North Korea, Iran, China, and Russia dissolve?

We have no idea. Because the Biden administration has been strangely reticent on the question of Russia’s leadership, and, indeed, the relationship it wants with Russia overall. What is the Biden administration’s Russia policy? Does it even have one?

In short, the answer is: not really.

Odd as the missing Russia policy sounds, the reality is that since the end of World War II, its absence has been the norm rather than the exception. It’s not that the United States ignored global communism, captive nations, or the threat posed by the Soviet Union; rather, throughout much of the Cold War, the aim was the consolidation of the George Kennan-authored concept of containment, rather than the destruction of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Containment implied the management of the Soviet problem; a true Russia policy would have gone beyond defending against the Kremlin’s predations to imagining a different future than communist tyranny.

For decades, U.S. policy focused on competing with the Soviets, not on achieving any particular outcome for Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s successors. Nor was that especially odd, particularly in the shadow of two world wars that left tens of millions dead and wounded. If the Soviets wanted to keep on crushing their own, or even killing them—you will look in vain for a contemporaneous pronouncement from a U.S. leader on the question of the estimated 30 million dead at Stalin’s hands—that was the Kremlin’s business.

The United States and Europe, unified in the newly born NATO, were mostly focused on the fate of the Soviet Union’s captive nations in Eastern and Central Europe. Not so focused, mind you, that NATO would stand up in defense of either the Hungarians (1956) or the Czechs (1968) in their efforts to offload their Soviet overlords; but at the very least, interested.

Rather, the West was most energized in stemming the spread of Soviet communism and its proxy powers. Thus, the United States found itself engaged directly militarily in Korea and Vietnam, with much of the rest of the world sorted into the bipolar Cold War construct. And though the battle against the Soviet Union had ideological elements—freedom vs. tyranny, democracy vs. communism—the foundation of U.S. policy was strategic. For its first 40 years, the Cold War was much less about values and much more about the cold calculations deemed necessary to stem the Red tide.

Various presidents tweaked U.S. policy: John F. Kennedy’s “flexible response,” Richard Nixon’s détente, Jimmy Carter’s human rights-driven retreat from confrontation. But it was Ronald Reagan who represented the watershed in U.S. Cold War Russia policy. It was Reagan who labeled the USSR an “evil empire,” with emphasis on the morality-laden term “evil.” And it was Reagan who made the fundamental decision to take the battle to the Soviets the world over—in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, and other nations hitherto mysterious to the vast mass of Americans.

Like his predecessors, Reagan’s doctrinal approach was driven less by specific ambitions about the shape of a future Russia and more by a desire to erode the Soviet Union’s power, reach, and ability to foster the global spread of communism. But much more than his predecessors, he recognized that the shape of a future Russia would dictate the security of both the United States and its allies as well as the people who lived under Soviet rule.

Among the first public references to a desired outcome for Russian governance came in Reagan’s address to the Soviet people broadcast over Voice of America in 1986:

Whenever there’s a restoration of those rights to a man or a woman [Andrei Sakharov and Yelena Bonner], as has happened recently, it helps strengthen the foundations for trust and cooperation between our countries. And by the same token, whenever those rights are denied the foundation is seriously weakened. Much more can and should be done to strengthen that foundation. We welcome progress in this area as much as we welcome it in the effort to secure nuclear arms reduction. In fact, progress here and in all key areas of our relationship is essential if we are to build on this foundation.

More fundamentally, Reagan recast the question of balance-of-power politics for the first time since Winston Churchill declared the existence of the Iron Curtain. “My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic,” Reagan told an aide in 1977, and repeated again during his presidency: “It is this: We win and they lose.”

In the end, the Soviets lost on a scale that likely would have shocked even Reagan. The Warsaw Pact, the captive Soviet Empire, Moscow’s fellow traveling nations—all crumbled into ashes more dramatically than almost anyone envisioned. And perhaps because of the wholly unexpected nature of that collapse, much of the West struggled to shape a new Russia approach appropriate to the “end of history.”

Again, it’s not that there weren’t components to a policy. Ex-Warsaw Pact nations were slowly welcomed into NATO. There were efforts at arms control and disarmament. There was a generic effort to support Russian evolution into a more normal country and even some consideration of U.S. taxpayer-funded assistance to Moscow. But since the end of the Cold War, there has been no vision for Russia—no coherent sense of a larger policy that drives the tactical decisions made every day.

Since the Clinton administration, the pattern has been the same: Grand hopes for the integration of Russia into the “community of nations,” and then a “reset” that inevitably regresses to the status quo ante. President Bill Clinton abandoned his initial Boris Yeltsin-centered Russia policy—including qualified pledges not to expand NATO—but was soon forced by circumstance and Russia’s own choices into NATO expansion, sanctions against Russian entities, and bombing Russia’s ally, Serbia.

President George W. Bush infamously saw into Putin’s soul, cementing a friendship solid enough that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Moscow facilitated the resupply of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But the end of the Bush administration brought disillusionment, with the president pulling a nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia over intervention in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazie in Georgia.

Ditto, almost literally, President Barack Obama, whose approach to Russia began with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton embarrassingly presenting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a red “reset” button and ended with strict sanctions on Russia over its 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea.

Even President Donald Trump, the putative Russian agent who entered the White House with détente-oriented hopes and dreams, ended up implementing a strict sanctions regime against Putin, though the former president’s recent statements—and his recent invitation for Russia to invade NATO members shorting their “dues” to the alliance—may indicate a radical shift ahead for the United States. But during his term in office, Trump successfully bullied NATO members into larger defense budgets and downsized the Russian diplomatic presence in the United States over the Kremlin’s 2018 poisoning of defected Russian double agent Sergei Skripal (a downsizing that remains in force, and is even greater today)—a remarkable deterioration in bilateral relations that has only worsened since Biden’s election and Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

So, is this post-Cold War history a tale of good intentions, good policy, and regrettable outcomes? Not really.

There should be little doubt that every U.S. president since Woodrow Wilson hoped to see a free and democratic Russia—or, at the very minimum, a normal Russia that set aside imperial ambitions. But hope is not a foreign policy. And the actual policies in place, particularly since the end of the Cold War and the demise of the concept of mutually assured destruction, have little to do with Russia’s internal policies and much to do with its external relations. Even Obama’s reset was more about “important areas to discuss with the Russians” and less about the future of Russia itself.

The core problem is that Russia’s internal situation and its foreign policy are inextricably intertwined. Dictators with visions of world domination or of reconstituting the greatness of the Russian Empire of yesteryear have long shaped the Kremlin’s choices, with devastating consequences around the world. Absent a specific policy for Russia, U.S. policy will remain reactive, with constant tactical adjustments that merely manage the problem.

Isolationists and realists will inevitably argue that putting in place a long-term pro-democracy policy for Russia is little more than a neoconservative prescription for endless and inconclusive U.S. meddling. But this is a false choice. Absent a stable Kremlin, the United States and its allies will be forced into a rinse-and-repeat cycle of confrontation with Moscow’s leadership. Now it’s over Ukraine. Previously, it was over Crimea, Georgia, and Syria. There is no reason to believe the cycle will change if U.S. Russia policy remains the same.

The place to begin is a new declarative policy in favor of freedom in Russia. This means exerting much more effort to support the Russian opposition—not with money or arms, but with Washington’s “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval. It means Reagan-style elevation of the issue of human rights in Russia, more aggressive information warfare and propaganda, and, yes, ensuring that Russia loses in Ukraine.

It should also mean an end to punitive policies that ultimately unite Russia’s oligarchs behind Putin. Right now, those who have enriched themselves with the Kremlin’s blessing are having their boats and villas and bank accounts expropriated or frozen. One need not have any sympathy for these thieves to understand that lumping their fate with Putin’s only consolidates his foundation of support. Rather, it is Russia’s money that should be in our sights. The Kremlin has $300 billion in foreign reserves in foreign banks. That money should be garnished to repay damages and underwrite the rebuilding of Ukraine.

If Russia loses in Ukraine—and its loss must be central to NATO policy—the humiliation will be an albatross around Putin’s neck. But even in the event of that loss, the Biden administration (like many of its predecessors) has no policy in place to exploit Putin’s failure. Needless to say, neither does the Republican Party.

If the policy is “we win, you lose,” what will Putin’s loss look like? Will Washington be satisfied to see another ruthless kleptocrat in his place? A Russian nationalist? Or is the U.S. aim to see Russia’s fearless dissidents—think Alexei Navalny or Vladimir Kara-Murza—lead a once-great nation toward freedom? If so, it’s time to make life more unpleasant for their jailers, Putin first among them. It’s time not simply to find and freeze his many assets, but to seize them. It’s time to advertise the details of his corruption to the Russian people via the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Counterarguments that this will only back Putin into a corner fail to appreciate that he has long been in that corner, painted in with his own strokes. Indeed, his only way out is to hope that once the question of Ukraine is resolved, he will be able to reenter the community of nations, with all forgotten in the hopes of yet another reset. But no reset will stick absent fundamental change in Moscow. It’s time to orient ourselves toward facilitating that change.

[anarkittyuwuuniverse]

I've been thinking a bit about consensus-decision making vs systems based on voting, advantages and disadvantages about both. I feel like people often have very strong feelings about both, I often hear anarchists holding up consensus as the one true anarchic system and dismiss voting as majoritarian tyranny. Meanwhile I hear more democratically-minded people denounce consensus systems as being even more hierarchical because people who disagree with a decision can't even hold onto that disagreement but have to subject it to the majority in order for the discussion to end and get anything done, + the issue of a few socially competent people dominating discussions, making up a new de-facto ruling class. As to the thing about socially competent people I feel like that's an issue that pretty much any kind of human organizing runs into and isn't exactly less prevalent in voting based systems, representative democracies are essentially popularity contests and any system based on intimate group conversation will run into that problem, but in local intimate contexts there's at least more possibility of implementing security measures, and in consensus systems specifically it's easier to avoid creating opposing camps because the outcome is not rigid and predetermined but subject to constant negotiation and revising (though it is still definitely possible to make camps). One thing that I like about the consensus models I've read about has been the possibility for people to opt-out when they don't have very strong feelings or any stakes in the decision being made, so that the people for whom the decision is most relevant get to decide. One of the biggest problems I see with democracy is that every vote is weighed the same regardless of people's social standing or relevance to the issue. This is based on liberal notions of equality and it's quite surprising to see so many communists be in favor of democracy when that directly contradicts Marx' disregard for egalitarianism in favor of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". What's most important to me about decision-making is not that you have a majority behind it but that decisions are always made by the people impacted by those decisions, though the problem with that is that there's so much power to be gained in redefining and expanding who is included in this group, and it's not always so straight-forward, as it can be hard to see just how far the decisions we make can ripple. Maybe it'll become more obvious in a less-globalized world and with abolition of government, but even in such a world we might still encounter situations where different groups have to come together for matters that concerns them both, and with a larger number and more people who don't know each other voting might be preferable over consensus. I have a lot of issues with voting but I'm pretty open to the possibility of using different methods to suit different needs but I don't know I just have so many questions. This post is mainly me venting my thoughts and hoping it reaches some other anarchists who might have thought further than me, know about other models and methods, maybe there's even something completely outside the consensus/voting dichotomy?

[windudemon]

aristocratic/democratic dichotomy in socionics

basically, aristocratic types are anti debate. if SLE (estp) is in power, he/she just gonna ban you from the chat server or forum. especially if he/she is in the process of losing a debate. they solve things with se physical / direct / ethics-ignoring ways which is basically your typical tyranny. chances are much more higher to hear the phrase “because i said so” from an SLE compared to any other type. an ILE (entp) will give you a reason and explain why. an LIE (entj) also will do this but much more ni concisely.

LSE (estj) are the same as SLE but they have some more class because LSE has fe role. they understand acting like SLE will make them look “too” bad. so they will give you a soft ultimatum or something first (which is also si creative) and then if you keep debating around you will get banned. a two-phased “because i said so”.

LSI (istp) as fe inferior and ne blindspot basically the worst combo you can get when it comes to being a debater. there's a reason why we almost never see istp political commentators.

SLI (istj) gonna be better than LSI but there will be certain obsessive-compulsive te facts for them and they will nitpick you on those things and try to shut you down in an anti-democratic way too.

as you can see, that’s all the STs. STs are all about doing + directly. neither their NE nor any ethics functions they have can be considered actually good. they are the MOST undemocratic.

alright! how does this same logic apply to NFs then even though at a lesser degree since they got better ethics? delta is easier: EII (infp) is easily the most anti-debate type. they are trying to get along with you and they will usually find a way to do that but if there’s no way, then EII just leaves the room or just tell you something like “i disagree but (softener:) interesting thoughts.” they won’t try to change your mind. they deeply dislike death-match type of debates. your ideas vs mine! attttttaaaack! nope, thanks, bye.

IEE (enfp) will go a few steps further than EII in the debate and entertain some thoughts. no, they will even start some debates BUT with an intention like exchanging ideas and without “critical” thinking. so they are like “how can i be right and how can you be right too”. is it really okay to call this undemocratic? well, the term definitely apply the least to enfp out of all so called aristocratic types, i’m not gonna lie. but still, democracy is not just accepting everything but debating and proving what's need to be proven wrong.

EIE (enfj) and IEI (infj) then, will have obsessive-compulsive fe facts where they can not budge. then as SE users, they will try to enforce those rules on you. (now, they “usually” make sense with their rules but that’s not the point. besides, as a ti and fe user myself, i might be biased with this opinion).

now you can ask what about SFs then? are they very democratic? obviously they are not going to be as democratic as NTs. SFJs (sei and ese) are easier: sure, they will also suffer from “fe ocd” but at least they won’t “se enforce” rules impactfully. they will use si instead.

SFPs then gonna mirror SFJs. se impactful yes, but they won't be upholding and "guardianing" the holy rules of fe. for example who can say lady gaga or billy eilish or katy perry is too aristocratic? nope. they are the opposite. they are freaky and so they won’t be bothered by other freaks.

true democracy comes from NTs of alpha and gamma quadras. they are the best debaters and they are the intuitives who can think out of the box. they will ask what's the box? they wiill change the box by thinking alternatively, conceptually, abstractly, essentialy etc. NTPs of alpha quadra will produce ideas with ne and NTJs of gamma will eliminate the unnecessary ones and refine the good bits.

delta quadra is chill / utopic aristocracy. example: erdogan. beta quadra is more forcefully aristocratic. example: hitler or putin. alpha quadra is chill / utopic democracy. example: obama or boris johnson. gamma quadra is more forceful / realistic / pragmatic democratic. example: ayn rand.

check out my main blog @ demonwindu.wordpress.com

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

One more time with feeling . . . Ignore the polls!

November 6, 2023

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

    We are one year out from the 2024 general election, and media outlets are busy predicting a future they cannot know. I routinely advise readers to “ignore the polls,” so whenever I write about the polls, readers tell me I should follow my own advice. Fair point. But the poll by the New York Times released over the weekend prompted dozens of readers to send panicked emails asking me to “Talk them off the ledge.” The NYTimes poll will get more coverage in the Monday news cycle, so in anticipation of hundreds of additional panicked reactions, I will once again address the issue of polling. It is a scourge that we will live with for the next year, so occasional reminders that the only poll that matters will occur on November 5, 2024, is in order.

          In short, the NYTimes poll found that Biden is trailing Trump in five of six swing states and that Democrats are losing ground among young, Hispanic, and Black voters. Many voters believe that Trump is better able to manage the economy, that Biden is “too old,” and cannot identify anything that Biden did to improve their lives. Go figure!

          Nothing I write below should be interpreted as saying that polls do not contain valuable information. They can (depending on their quality). Polls include information that helps campaign managers and candidates focus and refine their message. They are NOT predictions. Remember Nate Silver’s article in FiveThirtyEight in 2011, “Is Obama toast? Handicapping the 2012 Election.” If polls taken one year before elections were meaningfully predictive, then each of the following candidates should have quit their first campaigns: Carter, Clinton, Obama, Biden—and Trump.  

          So, why should we not panic over the polls? Indeed, is there a silver lining? (Spoiler alert: Yes.)

          Let’s start with a lesson that we must not forget: The old paradigm of “horse-race” polls no longer applies. Why? Because such polls assume that two legitimate candidates are competing for votes within the system. We have never had a candidate who seeks to overthrow the system. Or who attempted a coup. Or who plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on the first day of his next term. Or who called for the execution of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Or who will use the DOJ to persecute his perceived enemies. Or who was found liable for sexual assault. Or who will support a nationwide ban on reproductive liberty. Or who views Putin as a friend and NATO allies as adversaries and leeches.

          I have not studied the NYTimes methodology, but I am confident it simply asks some variant of, “Which candidate do you support in 2024?” Faced with that limited construct, it is easy to be seduced into making a forced choice without regard to the fact that Trump is an anti-candidate. That error is compounded because the poll does not highlight Trump’s fundamental desire to destroy the system but instead asks about Biden’s age.

          As I have written before, believing that most voters will walk into the polling booth in 2024 and vote only for “Biden vs Trump” is simplistic—and beneath the NYTimes and its expert pollsters. When WaPo/ABC published a poll that was subjected to nearly universal derision for its flaws, I wrote the following:

          The 2024 presidential election features two candidates who are surrogates for different visions of America: Democracy versus autocracy; liberty versus tyranny; dignity versus bigotry; science versus disinformation; personal autonomy versus subservience to Christian nationalism; sustainability versus ecological disaster; safety versus gun violence; global stability versus confrontational isolationism. All of that—and much more—is on the ballot in 2024. The WaPo/ABC “horse-race” poll captures none of that.

          Three more points and then I will stop paying attention to the polls (as I recommend).

          First, Dan Pfeiffer’s article in The Message Box on Substack explains why the NYTimes poll shows the path forward. See Dan Pfeiffer, How to Respond to the Very Bad NYT Poll. If you are worried about the poll and want more details, I highly recommend Dan’s article. Pertinent passages include the following about “double haters” who dislike both Biden and Trump:

Perhaps the simplest explanation of Biden’s political challenges is that he has done a lot of good, popular things, and almost no one knows about them. Navigator tested a series of messages about Biden’s various accomplishments, including allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug costs, the bipartisan law to rebuild roads and bridges, and efforts to create more manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Guess what? All of this stuff is super popular. Medicare negotiating drug prices is supported by 77% of Americans, including 64% of Republicans. The bipartisan infrastructure law has the support of 73% of Americans and a majority of Republicans. Every accomplishment tested in this poll had majority support. It’s hard to overstate how impressive that is in a deeply divided, highly polarized country at a time when the President’s approval ratings are in the low 40s. That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news: according to the poll, a majority of Americans heard little or nothing about the accomplishments tested. There is a yawning knowledge gap. Now for more good news (think of this as a positive sandwich); the poll shows that when people are told about what Biden has done, his approval rating goes up. The voters most likely to move are the “Double Haters.”

          My penultimate point: The 2024 presidential election matters a lot. But so do congressional elections, gubernatorial elections, state legislative elections, municipal elections, and more. If—heaven forbid—Trump wins in 2024, a second Trump term with a Democratically controlled Congress is radically different than if Republicans control Congress. And states can be bulwarks of individual liberties if Republicans are able to pass national legislation. So, let’s not put every hope and aspiration into the presidential election. We should do everything we can to win up and down the ballot.

Concluding Thoughts.

          Although I did not intend to devote the entire newsletter to the NYTimes poll, I will stop here. We will be dealing with bad polls, handwringing, and negative press for the next year, so it is worth drawing a line in the sand and saying, “Enough!” The election is not over until it is over—notwithstanding the media’s best efforts to declare defeat a year in advance. And while I am criticizing the media, shame on the media for normalizing Trump as a legitimate political candidate. He is not.

          We will prevail over the long run, no matter what happens in 2024. (To be clear, I believe Biden will win re-election.) But if we have confidence that we will ultimately prevail, we can set aside the apocalyptic fears that we wrongly ascribe to a single election in 2024. We don’t need to panic over every poll.

The NYTimes poll reminds us that we have plenty of work to do in spreading the good news of Biden’s accomplishments. So, rather than needlessly fretting a year in advance about 2024, let’s recognize that we have a year to achieve

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[ukrainewarnotes]

Like many people around the world, I've watched the events unfolding in Ukraine during the last few months with horror, sadness, anger and confusion. I knew little about Russia and even less about Ukraine and didn't understand what was happening or why.

When I turned to the news to try to make sense of the situation, I found harrowing stories of war crimes and simple black and white narratives with little context given: a war of good and evil, of tyranny and brutality vs freedom and democracy.

But on social media I was faced with polarizing and strident views that seemed to be coming from parallel universes:

Ukraine is either infested with neo-Nazis, or any mention of far right extremists is nothing but deranged Kremlin propaganda;

Zelenskyy is either one of the greatest heroes of our time, or a dangerously inexperienced and reckless fool whose poor decisions have led Ukraine to ruin, or a sociopathic war criminal, or a hapless puppet;

Putin is either the second coming of Hitler, an evil madman leading a genocidal war to expand Russian territory, or a rational actor who has showed restraint in the face of repeated provocation and existential threat;

Ukraine has either been persecuting and killing ethnic Russians in Donbas for years, or all reports of such are just hateful anti-Ukraine propaganda.

The West are either to blame for interfering and provoking Russia, or for not doing enough to help Ukraine.

So which is it?

This blog is part of my attempt to understand the context and consequences of this conflict, as well as the information war raging around it. Posts may be few and far between. This is mainly a place to follow other people's blogs and gather and evaluate information.

This blog is NOT pro-Russian, anti-Russian, pro-Ukrainian, or anti-Ukrainian. It is pro-truth, pro-peace, pro-human rights. I believe those who commit war crimes should be held accountable, no matter which side they're on. I believe all victims deserve to be heard. I believe irresponsible news media and disinformation hurts us all.

I welcome comments and corrections, especially from those affected by the conflict.