Happy New Year. Thank you for the info that 23 petit riches have died last year although like you I am unable to put it into proper context.
Two random pieces of news that are relevant to you and the readers here.
1) In the UK the police and the MI5 prosecute children for involvement in right-wing terrorism ! The youngest are 13-year-old boys and some have been sentenced ! This is not some New Year joke. More details from the very official Reuters:
I am sure that Pakistani and Somali gangs were shivering in fear before the police and the MI5 intervened.
2) Yandex is the largest and most successful Russian internet firm. But is it Russian ? It is registered and headquartered in the Netherlands and listed on the Nasdaq. It is Russian because it mainly serves the former Soviet Union, because its leadership is drawn from the former Soviet Union and it has large operational offices in Russia and White Russia.
Yandex was not included in the sanctions at first. However a righteous yidividual, Lev Gershenzon, intervened loudly and insisted that Yandex be sanctioned too, because it spread disinformation about the war. After some lobbying, Yandex was sanctioned. The sanctions restricted its ability to move money between Russian legal entities and Western legal entities, prevented it from paying dividends and the coupons on its debt, resulting in default. The share price collapsed and the shares were delisted. Paying employees became a nightmare.
Another effect of the sanctions was to prevent the company from purchasing electricity for the data centres located in the West. So Yandex has to run its Western data centres on diesel generators at great cost, which threatens the company with actual bankruptcy, rather than technical default.
The Armenian (from Russia ?) CEO and his team were ousted. They were replaced by one of the founders, Arkady Volozh, and some of his friends. The new CEO is Jewish and plans to move the headquarters to ... Tel Aviv. In parallel the European Commission was mollified and the sanctions have been adapted to enable the company to pay its employees. No purchase of electricity though. Still Jewish magic has worked wonders and has delivered yet another internet giant into their hands.
The intent is to separate the Russian and non-Russian parts of the company and run them independently. But they would be run by the same team.
Will the spooks finally sign off on hitting the Ukraines f()cking transportation infrastructure? The "SMO" at this point is even beyond a bad parody of a war.
Zog is actually starting to destroy the transportation infrastructure on the liberated territories but Russia still isnt touching the transportation infrastructure on the Ukrainian side. Besides this being the most blatant betrayal of an army in all of history that i can think of this is also pretty strong evidence that Zog has no intention of ever forgiving the non jews in the crook class. I mean its because of them that the relevant war fighting infastructure in Ukraine isn't being touched but here we have Zog not even remotely reciprocating in kind. After all the shitlib russian Oligarchs need that infastructure on the Russian side working to keep their shekel flow at peak levels. I imagine that Zog wont touch the oil transit pipes but apparently they have no qualms about blowing up everything else on the Russian side while the Russians just passively take it. How can the Oligarchs still not see that they are in the same boat as Putin now? They are literally incapable of recognising that history has already made it impossible for liberal non Jewish Russian billionaires to be part of the global ruling class. If Russia wins they cant be members of a global ruling elite that can no longer enforce its will on the whole world. Russian victory derails Zogs global ambitions for the foreseeable future. If Russia loses they are on trial with Putin and will be hung with him. So either way they are irrelevant as far as the future is concerned. However their adamant refusal to acknowledge that and make the relevant changes is going to ensure Russia is destroyed and they are executed in Nuremberg 2.0 as opposed to them having to settle for not being Schwab and Rothschilds shameless bottom boys and having fewer yachts and Tuscan villas.
I too tend to dislike the spooks, especially FSB but if they will at least give the Army half a chance at winning and than thats an improvement over the no chance they have right now. Keep stacking the bodies.
America's top general Milley would certainly be a huge improvement over dementia-ridden Branden. He at least seems willing to negotiate an end to the war.
Not kidding. Milley, whom I'm hardly a fan of since he (along with SecDef Esper) obstructed Trump's policies, has (at least once) publicly called for negotiations, though he was no doubt taken to the woodshed for daring to question the Brandon Admin's war agenda. I'd trust a general, who knows the real costs of war, over a war-first chickenhawk neocon any day. (You did say that you'd "rather have the soldiers running things.")
The US has become a one-party state with hopelessly corrupt elections. The Establishment must be upended if the country is to have a future, (it could be too late in any case). I don't see how (temporary) military control of Washington could be any worse as long as it prevents an all-out war with Russia, which seems headed to go nuclear. And I've never heard of Poe's law.
Interesting, so a junta is the only other option. The similarities between the US and Russsia are remarkable. Only the terminology used by MSM to describe the power structure is different. In the US, oligarchs are called entrepreneurs. Liberals are enamored with "public/private partnerships." That's basically when monopolistic multinationals and tech companies set public policy; the security state works hand-in-glove to support and protect their assets and policies. This alliance is traditionally known as fascism.
An overt military takeover in the US would probably continue the status quo (fascism) as much of the Pentagon is in bed with arms manufacturers, big tech, and the pharmaceutical industry. If uncompromised military officers took over they would soon be
In this kind of discussion always contrast the RF with the PRC, because their elites are in a completely different category.
The basic question is who have their own power base and how secure it is, that is who is bribable and who is not, who is a principal and who is a trustie or a tool.
The basic problem the USA oligarchs have with China is that the chinese oligarchs are as a group unbribable, they have their own power base which is as big as that of any USA oligarch, and they may actually replace them as the dominant power in the world. They don't need or welcome USA "protection". They don't need to be second-level players in the USA sphere of influence, when they can be first-level players in their own bigger and richer sphere of influence.
The one issue the chinese oligarchs have is that they are second-place to the state/party, while the USA oligarchs are in complete control of the state. There is a similar issue in the RF of course, it was well described by a commenter:
I agree that in the West the Oligarchs control the State, while I thought the reverse happened in Russia, until this blog made me aware of the existence of the silovik class.
China is an enigma. May be a paper tiger, for all the reasons Peter Zeihan (the globalist shill) enumerates in his videos.
«I agree that in the West the Oligarchs control the State, while I thought the reverse happened in Russia, until this blog made me aware of the existence of the silovik class»
But the siloviki are the state, and Putin is the silovik-in-chief. The state is not some abstract entity, it is made of people, and factions too, just like the oligarchs.
An USA economist made popular the notion of "countervailing power", that is that outcomes are more balanced when there are rival power centers rather than a single dominant one. Also because the rivalry gives some power center the incentive to ally with the population and thus help them get a better deal in exchange for support.
In the USA the oligarchs are by far and away the biggest power centre, and even if they are divided in factions, they act as one in protecting their dominance. The USA has siloviki too, the "deep state" dynasties of people in the military (especially the Navy and the security services) and the state administrations, but they usually obey the oligarchs.
In Russia and China the siloviki are more powerful than the oligarchs, but the oligarchs fight back, so the russian and chinese siloviki are motivated to put in policies more favourable to the population to get their support (and also for ideological reasons for Putin and Xi).
Yes, well, as I wrote above I understand the turbo-financial-privatization process set up in Russia by Outsiders during the '90s was later held back by Putin, so Oligarchs do not hold sway there as much as here. But thank you for going all over it once again.
I don't think China has any Oligarch to be honest. There is some rich entrepreneur in Hong Kong, but other than that,
No free market + No Outsiders = Power is in the political power structure
where, by the book, it is supposed to lie.
Formally, it should be the same in Western democracies, but in practice however Power there resides behind the shadows.
Then there are hybrid cases of interpenetration between civil and practice sector, such as in France with its (apparent, outwardly) ruling class educated in public Grand Ecoles, who then move on to occupy private or public top positions indifferently, while enjoying revolving doors between the two.
In Germany and the US, instead, politicians are just toadies, and grand bureaucrats like Allen Dulles, or EJ Hoover are just waiters to the real powers-that-be (who are the ones behind the FED).
My grandmother's English friend, Enid Blyton, a famous 1950s creator of geopolitical metaphors, used to say this all the time, whenever she was surprised. I never actually understood what it meant but it sounds right for this situation.
Well I never.
I am shocked.
Oligarchs dying all over the place and not one of the bastards doing this has had the common decency to share his technique. I have a friend who is desperate to learn so, effing cough up. I would like to know how its done and pass the hint on.
My buddy has identified the top media man in the world as also the top NWO coordinator, Rupert Murdoch, and he is itching to send him to Valhalla. Personally, I regard this a bit extremist but then, who am I to criticise? So, Rolo, do you reckon you could give one of these clever blokes a nudge.
Arrived at WO to be informed that both the Prince of Wales and the Repulse had been sunk by the Japs! This on top of the tragedy of Honolulu puts us in a very serious position for the prosecution of the war. [...] Spent afternoon in office with series of visits. Starting with Sir Keith Murdoch who controls Australian group of newspapers.»
Brooke was the Chief of Imperial General Staff, and in the middle of a critical period of WW2 he still had time to see a "mere" owner of an "Australian group of newspapers". Tells you something. :-)
As to Keith's son:
Anthony Hilton "Evening Standard"
«I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. 'That’s easy,' he replied. 'When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”»
Very timely - at least someone is talking about this. The Sidney article is the single MSM analysis of this very dark development of which I am aware. (Otherwise it's "so and so fell from a high rise and now back to today's drag queen news") - but it may be worse. They do not mention Vadim Boyko - the colonel - top recruitment officer - suicided last fall ( https://globalnews.ca/news/9286653/russian-colonel-shot-dead-in-office-vadim-boyko/ ) ... "colonel" always get my "conspiracy (coup)" impulses rev up.
Boyko's wife said he killed himself out of frustration over an unfair accusation that he was stealing by his corrupt higher-ups. He didn't want his family to be saddled with millions of roubles in fines.
Thanks. Incentives facing a suddenly widowed spouse are not easy to discern. "Media reports" at the time suggested multiple gun shots in his office after which he was found dead.
Good that you (and just about nobody else) are trying to understand the deep weirdness occurring in elite strata in Russia - at a minimum, it surely does not seem to be a state capable of imposing favorable military outcomes on an adversary - frozen ground or not!
«multiple gun shots in his office after which he was found dead»
He may have missed :-). It is in the USA that inconvenient people ("near to the Clintons" IIRC) are found to have committed suicide with 2 shots to their own head :-).
About the last video, it's said the date is December 27, 50 BC, but truthfully, nothing historical happened on that day.
Caesar crossed the Rubicon on the 11th of January of 49 BC, because on the 7th of January he had been declared an enemy of the Republic by the Senate. Hence the Senate was in full control of Rome by 27 Dec -50, and those soldiers could simply not have been able to irrupt in the Senate as shown in the video.
And if - as the title of the video implies - these soldiers were meant to be part of praetorian guard, that was a simple escort of generals in republican times. So right there, an anachronism. Their importance rose afterwards, in imperial times, when they were officially entrusted with the physical safety of Emperor.
Rolo, I don't know if you know Gil Doctorow, but I think you would enjoy this brief (unusual for Doctorow) article. Doctorow has lived in Russia for decades.
The mental imagery of "knife-wielding monkeys" loose in Russia conveys the 'bardak' precisely. What to do? I haven't a clue. Even so, were I a participant in Russian politics, I would move my personal and professional quarters to 1st Floor ground-level only.
The situation facing Russia in Ukraine, and with NATO/U.S. generally, has reached the "shit or get off the pot" stage -- to use a useful American idiom -- often the most dangerous stage. I'm guessing this winter will tell the tale.
Who knows? The Russian bear may be sitting on an iceberg, watching as the Titanic NATO ship-of-state appears out of the darkness at flank speed.
It doesn't sound like they were ended with any humane intent. Any exception to a somewhat democratic law and order is excusing appalling criminality and sets a dangerous precedent; it may not be fascistic but it's certainly autocratic. Govs should be run by the most democratically run academics, not martial law.
But academia is anything but democratic. All of Liberalism's institutions like the media, big corps, academia, etc do not give the people a say.
If you believe that voting makes things better then actually have votes for who runs the media, big business, etc you know the things that actually matter.
Idealism is a wonderful thing when you share the ideals. Academics now share control of the USA with the military industrial complex, the CIA, and the FBI. American "academics" now promote transgenderism and the religions of global warming and multi-vaccinations for diseases that do not respond to the vaccinations.
I agree, it's a long-term goal, only an insider would have the best idea of how to get there, hopefully it's possible but the future is looking very dark so far.
Hello Rolo,
Happy New Year. Thank you for the info that 23 petit riches have died last year although like you I am unable to put it into proper context.
Two random pieces of news that are relevant to you and the readers here.
1) In the UK the police and the MI5 prosecute children for involvement in right-wing terrorism ! The youngest are 13-year-old boys and some have been sentenced ! This is not some New Year joke. More details from the very official Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-police-warn-younger-children-involved-far-right-terrorism-2022-03-17/
I am sure that Pakistani and Somali gangs were shivering in fear before the police and the MI5 intervened.
2) Yandex is the largest and most successful Russian internet firm. But is it Russian ? It is registered and headquartered in the Netherlands and listed on the Nasdaq. It is Russian because it mainly serves the former Soviet Union, because its leadership is drawn from the former Soviet Union and it has large operational offices in Russia and White Russia.
Yandex was not included in the sanctions at first. However a righteous yidividual, Lev Gershenzon, intervened loudly and insisted that Yandex be sanctioned too, because it spread disinformation about the war. After some lobbying, Yandex was sanctioned. The sanctions restricted its ability to move money between Russian legal entities and Western legal entities, prevented it from paying dividends and the coupons on its debt, resulting in default. The share price collapsed and the shares were delisted. Paying employees became a nightmare.
Another effect of the sanctions was to prevent the company from purchasing electricity for the data centres located in the West. So Yandex has to run its Western data centres on diesel generators at great cost, which threatens the company with actual bankruptcy, rather than technical default.
The Armenian (from Russia ?) CEO and his team were ousted. They were replaced by one of the founders, Arkady Volozh, and some of his friends. The new CEO is Jewish and plans to move the headquarters to ... Tel Aviv. In parallel the European Commission was mollified and the sanctions have been adapted to enable the company to pay its employees. No purchase of electricity though. Still Jewish magic has worked wonders and has delivered yet another internet giant into their hands.
The intent is to separate the Russian and non-Russian parts of the company and run them independently. But they would be run by the same team.
Will the spooks finally sign off on hitting the Ukraines f()cking transportation infrastructure? The "SMO" at this point is even beyond a bad parody of a war.
https://t.me/rybar/42484
Zog is actually starting to destroy the transportation infrastructure on the liberated territories but Russia still isnt touching the transportation infrastructure on the Ukrainian side. Besides this being the most blatant betrayal of an army in all of history that i can think of this is also pretty strong evidence that Zog has no intention of ever forgiving the non jews in the crook class. I mean its because of them that the relevant war fighting infastructure in Ukraine isn't being touched but here we have Zog not even remotely reciprocating in kind. After all the shitlib russian Oligarchs need that infastructure on the Russian side working to keep their shekel flow at peak levels. I imagine that Zog wont touch the oil transit pipes but apparently they have no qualms about blowing up everything else on the Russian side while the Russians just passively take it. How can the Oligarchs still not see that they are in the same boat as Putin now? They are literally incapable of recognising that history has already made it impossible for liberal non Jewish Russian billionaires to be part of the global ruling class. If Russia wins they cant be members of a global ruling elite that can no longer enforce its will on the whole world. Russian victory derails Zogs global ambitions for the foreseeable future. If Russia loses they are on trial with Putin and will be hung with him. So either way they are irrelevant as far as the future is concerned. However their adamant refusal to acknowledge that and make the relevant changes is going to ensure Russia is destroyed and they are executed in Nuremberg 2.0 as opposed to them having to settle for not being Schwab and Rothschilds shameless bottom boys and having fewer yachts and Tuscan villas.
I too tend to dislike the spooks, especially FSB but if they will at least give the Army half a chance at winning and than thats an improvement over the no chance they have right now. Keep stacking the bodies.
💬 I don’t like either the Spooks or the Crooks and would rather have the Soldiers running things.
💯! Clean simple universal. Wins the interwebz in brand spanking fresh year so far 🤸
America's top general Milley would certainly be a huge improvement over dementia-ridden Branden. He at least seems willing to negotiate an end to the war.
You. Must. Be. Kidding 🤦
ETA On 2nd thought, it could be a routine win for Poe's law 🤔
Not kidding. Milley, whom I'm hardly a fan of since he (along with SecDef Esper) obstructed Trump's policies, has (at least once) publicly called for negotiations, though he was no doubt taken to the woodshed for daring to question the Brandon Admin's war agenda. I'd trust a general, who knows the real costs of war, over a war-first chickenhawk neocon any day. (You did say that you'd "rather have the soldiers running things.")
The US has become a one-party state with hopelessly corrupt elections. The Establishment must be upended if the country is to have a future, (it could be too late in any case). I don't see how (temporary) military control of Washington could be any worse as long as it prevents an all-out war with Russia, which seems headed to go nuclear. And I've never heard of Poe's law.
Interesting, so a junta is the only other option. The similarities between the US and Russsia are remarkable. Only the terminology used by MSM to describe the power structure is different. In the US, oligarchs are called entrepreneurs. Liberals are enamored with "public/private partnerships." That's basically when monopolistic multinationals and tech companies set public policy; the security state works hand-in-glove to support and protect their assets and policies. This alliance is traditionally known as fascism.
An overt military takeover in the US would probably continue the status quo (fascism) as much of the Pentagon is in bed with arms manufacturers, big tech, and the pharmaceutical industry. If uncompromised military officers took over they would soon be
co-opted by the same
>This alliance is traditionally known as fascism.
According to Marxists from the 70s, yes.
But prior to the 70's wasn't it known as fascism. After all, Hitler was funded by Western big banks and US industry.
So was the USSR.
In this kind of discussion always contrast the RF with the PRC, because their elites are in a completely different category.
The basic question is who have their own power base and how secure it is, that is who is bribable and who is not, who is a principal and who is a trustie or a tool.
The basic problem the USA oligarchs have with China is that the chinese oligarchs are as a group unbribable, they have their own power base which is as big as that of any USA oligarch, and they may actually replace them as the dominant power in the world. They don't need or welcome USA "protection". They don't need to be second-level players in the USA sphere of influence, when they can be first-level players in their own bigger and richer sphere of influence.
The one issue the chinese oligarchs have is that they are second-place to the state/party, while the USA oligarchs are in complete control of the state. There is a similar issue in the RF of course, it was well described by a commenter:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/01/john-helmer-putins-supper-for-the-oligarchs-whos-in-the-family-whos-out.html#comment-2529869
«In Russia Putin talks and the oligarchs take notes.
In the United States the oligarchs talk and Obama takes notes.
As for Congress, when the oligarchs talk Congress asks “How high?”»
Real politics and history is made by geoeconomics, shifting factions, people with power bases, and happenstance.
I agree that in the West the Oligarchs control the State, while I thought the reverse happened in Russia, until this blog made me aware of the existence of the silovik class.
China is an enigma. May be a paper tiger, for all the reasons Peter Zeihan (the globalist shill) enumerates in his videos.
«I agree that in the West the Oligarchs control the State, while I thought the reverse happened in Russia, until this blog made me aware of the existence of the silovik class»
But the siloviki are the state, and Putin is the silovik-in-chief. The state is not some abstract entity, it is made of people, and factions too, just like the oligarchs.
An USA economist made popular the notion of "countervailing power", that is that outcomes are more balanced when there are rival power centers rather than a single dominant one. Also because the rivalry gives some power center the incentive to ally with the population and thus help them get a better deal in exchange for support.
In the USA the oligarchs are by far and away the biggest power centre, and even if they are divided in factions, they act as one in protecting their dominance. The USA has siloviki too, the "deep state" dynasties of people in the military (especially the Navy and the security services) and the state administrations, but they usually obey the oligarchs.
In Russia and China the siloviki are more powerful than the oligarchs, but the oligarchs fight back, so the russian and chinese siloviki are motivated to put in policies more favourable to the population to get their support (and also for ideological reasons for Putin and Xi).
Yes, well, as I wrote above I understand the turbo-financial-privatization process set up in Russia by Outsiders during the '90s was later held back by Putin, so Oligarchs do not hold sway there as much as here. But thank you for going all over it once again.
I don't think China has any Oligarch to be honest. There is some rich entrepreneur in Hong Kong, but other than that,
No free market + No Outsiders = Power is in the political power structure
where, by the book, it is supposed to lie.
Formally, it should be the same in Western democracies, but in practice however Power there resides behind the shadows.
Then there are hybrid cases of interpenetration between civil and practice sector, such as in France with its (apparent, outwardly) ruling class educated in public Grand Ecoles, who then move on to occupy private or public top positions indifferently, while enjoying revolving doors between the two.
In Germany and the US, instead, politicians are just toadies, and grand bureaucrats like Allen Dulles, or EJ Hoover are just waiters to the real powers-that-be (who are the ones behind the FED).
Well I never.
My grandmother's English friend, Enid Blyton, a famous 1950s creator of geopolitical metaphors, used to say this all the time, whenever she was surprised. I never actually understood what it meant but it sounds right for this situation.
Well I never.
I am shocked.
Oligarchs dying all over the place and not one of the bastards doing this has had the common decency to share his technique. I have a friend who is desperate to learn so, effing cough up. I would like to know how its done and pass the hint on.
My buddy has identified the top media man in the world as also the top NWO coordinator, Rupert Murdoch, and he is itching to send him to Valhalla. Personally, I regard this a bit extremist but then, who am I to criticise? So, Rolo, do you reckon you could give one of these clever blokes a nudge.
Step 1) organize a gr - FBI OPEN UP HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE 'EM *BAM* *BAM*
Ahhhh. So that's how it's done. Well I never.
«the top media man in the world as also the top NWO coordinator, Rupert Murdoch»
It goes back a long way, here is the father:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wDwcUJ7D7LUC&pg=PT135
General Alan Brooke: «Wednesday, 10 December 1941
Arrived at WO to be informed that both the Prince of Wales and the Repulse had been sunk by the Japs! This on top of the tragedy of Honolulu puts us in a very serious position for the prosecution of the war. [...] Spent afternoon in office with series of visits. Starting with Sir Keith Murdoch who controls Australian group of newspapers.»
Brooke was the Chief of Imperial General Staff, and in the middle of a critical period of WW2 he still had time to see a "mere" owner of an "Australian group of newspapers". Tells you something. :-)
As to Keith's son:
Anthony Hilton "Evening Standard"
«I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. 'That’s easy,' he replied. 'When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”»
And Downing Street is controlled by the City of London.
Very timely - at least someone is talking about this. The Sidney article is the single MSM analysis of this very dark development of which I am aware. (Otherwise it's "so and so fell from a high rise and now back to today's drag queen news") - but it may be worse. They do not mention Vadim Boyko - the colonel - top recruitment officer - suicided last fall ( https://globalnews.ca/news/9286653/russian-colonel-shot-dead-in-office-vadim-boyko/ ) ... "colonel" always get my "conspiracy (coup)" impulses rev up.
Boyko's wife said he killed himself out of frustration over an unfair accusation that he was stealing by his corrupt higher-ups. He didn't want his family to be saddled with millions of roubles in fines.
Thanks. Incentives facing a suddenly widowed spouse are not easy to discern. "Media reports" at the time suggested multiple gun shots in his office after which he was found dead.
Good that you (and just about nobody else) are trying to understand the deep weirdness occurring in elite strata in Russia - at a minimum, it surely does not seem to be a state capable of imposing favorable military outcomes on an adversary - frozen ground or not!
«multiple gun shots in his office after which he was found dead»
He may have missed :-). It is in the USA that inconvenient people ("near to the Clintons" IIRC) are found to have committed suicide with 2 shots to their own head :-).
Autistic mode:
About the last video, it's said the date is December 27, 50 BC, but truthfully, nothing historical happened on that day.
Caesar crossed the Rubicon on the 11th of January of 49 BC, because on the 7th of January he had been declared an enemy of the Republic by the Senate. Hence the Senate was in full control of Rome by 27 Dec -50, and those soldiers could simply not have been able to irrupt in the Senate as shown in the video.
And if - as the title of the video implies - these soldiers were meant to be part of praetorian guard, that was a simple escort of generals in republican times. So right there, an anachronism. Their importance rose afterwards, in imperial times, when they were officially entrusted with the physical safety of Emperor.
Rolo, I don't know if you know Gil Doctorow, but I think you would enjoy this brief (unusual for Doctorow) article. Doctorow has lived in Russia for decades.
Wars make nations
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/01/02/wars-make-nations/
The mental imagery of "knife-wielding monkeys" loose in Russia conveys the 'bardak' precisely. What to do? I haven't a clue. Even so, were I a participant in Russian politics, I would move my personal and professional quarters to 1st Floor ground-level only.
The situation facing Russia in Ukraine, and with NATO/U.S. generally, has reached the "shit or get off the pot" stage -- to use a useful American idiom -- often the most dangerous stage. I'm guessing this winter will tell the tale.
Who knows? The Russian bear may be sitting on an iceberg, watching as the Titanic NATO ship-of-state appears out of the darkness at flank speed.
It doesn't sound like they were ended with any humane intent. Any exception to a somewhat democratic law and order is excusing appalling criminality and sets a dangerous precedent; it may not be fascistic but it's certainly autocratic. Govs should be run by the most democratically run academics, not martial law.
But academia is anything but democratic. All of Liberalism's institutions like the media, big corps, academia, etc do not give the people a say.
If you believe that voting makes things better then actually have votes for who runs the media, big business, etc you know the things that actually matter.
Hey, im talking about a theoretical academia for shyts n giggles.
Unless its a Jedi academy no thanks
Idealism is a wonderful thing when you share the ideals. Academics now share control of the USA with the military industrial complex, the CIA, and the FBI. American "academics" now promote transgenderism and the religions of global warming and multi-vaccinations for diseases that do not respond to the vaccinations.
Russia and the USA are both due for a reckoning.
I agree, it's a long-term goal, only an insider would have the best idea of how to get there, hopefully it's possible but the future is looking very dark so far.