When Putin took power in the winter of 1999-2000, his country was defenseless. It was bankrupt. It was being carved up by its new kleptocratic elites, in collusion with its old imperial rivals, the Americans. Putin changed that. In the first decade of this century, he did what Kemal Atatürk had done in Turkey in the 1920s. Out of a crumbling empire, he rescued a nation-state, and gave it coherence and purpose. He disciplined his country’s plutocrats. He restored its military strength. And he refused, with ever blunter rhetoric, to accept for Russia a subservient role in an American-run world system drawn up by foreign politicians and business leaders. His voters credit him with having saved his country.
And our PM’s leadership skills couldn’t pass muster to lead a classroom of children.
Yeah, I read about another great national success story like that, early-mid last century. Germany, I think it was – some guy named ‘Hitler’, if memory serves…
How’d that work out, anyway? Anybody remember?
Oh, big deal.
Our Dear Leader has clearly set our national* priorities: legalizing pot!
* Or should that be pot-national, er, post-national?
If people who like Trump also like Putin, it is only because they know nothing of the real Vladimir Putin.
Christopher Caldwell is so full of shit that I don’t know where to begin to fisk his Putin whitewash.
Putin is a KGB man through and through.
He is a stone killer, and he made his first millions stealing from his country, selling the food shipments that he was supposed to feed his people with on the black market, and many thousands starved to death to make Putin rich.
Putin LOOTED his country. He is a Billionaire today because of it.
Russia was never defenseless. Flying incursions into western airspace with their strategic nuclear bombers like they did this very weekend NEVER stopped. The hasn’t been a pause even when Russia was supposedly defenseless.
Agreed, Oz. You can’t put a shine on his pedestal.
And our PM’s leadership skills couldn’t pass muster to lead a classroom of children.
But didn’t he portray himself as the saviour of our country during the election, rescuing it from the clutches of those evil Conservatives? After all, when he showed up at, where was it, he said: “Canada’s back!”
Like him or not Putin is the by-product of 70 years of communist rule collapsed overnight.
For those that hate Putin but love Communism there’s no helping you, yes Liberal Progressives that you. For those that hate both Putin and Communism, you need to go back and study the conditions that allowed Communism to take hold and what 70 years of it does to a nation.
“Our Dear Leader has clearly set our national* priorities: legalizing pot!”
Here’s a pothead thought provoking question:
Who is the bigger threat to the USA – Russia putting a chimp named Albert into space or Canada putting a stoned chimp named Bieber into American public awareness?
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
You could have said Similar things about Hitler in 1936.
Caldwell didn’t say “what”. He said “how”.
In addition to what Oz said:
Putin, a billionaire who never worked outside of public sector.
A man who inherited pluralist state with legitimate political opposition and free media. And then proceeded to end those freedoms.
A man responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead, for widespread torture and ethnic clenching in the second Chechen war that was launched only to advance his career.
Like him or not Putin is the by-product of 70 years of communist rule collapsed overnight.
Yes, he’s probably the best they can do right now – totalitarianism is what seems to sort of work for them (remember, before communism, the Czars). Whether they will eventually evolve enough as a society to become able to embrace actual freedom (freedom of the press, for instance, which they don’t have now) and democracy, remains to be seen.
Knight 99: sorry, forgot the quotes around that line from your comment with which I started my own. Proof read, proof read!
I absolutely adore the Russian people. the huge sacrifices in 41-45 mean *that* nation takes the biggest portion of credit for that victory.
as far as the leadership, well ‘that is another story’. Caldwell would be right at home clucking away with Stalin’s foreign mouthpieces.
Putin is a mobster who liquidates any critics that reach a certain level of popularity.
Dubious assertion, that. To most “populist conservative” he is an imperialist dictator who needs to be stood up to.
PaulW >
I agree to a point with your comment, and with the reference article, that Putin is what a post Soviet collapse needed and how it’s worked, warts and all.
I do disagree with your comment, not wanting freedom “remember the Czars” part, as that would also apply to the French, Irish, American revolutions as well. Not to be confused with western assisted overthrows of Middle Eastern dictatorships, Islam and tribalism – Now Queue in NME666 with all his historical & cultural brilliance to “attempt” argue – LOL.
Communism left a massive 70 year old vacuum in a huge technological and resource rich nation, that was quickly being filled in with huge organized crime ventures and malevolent foreign interests.
Like him or not Putin, an animal of the intelligence community, stop gapped that hole and potentially put Russia in the pole position to be the future better country that everyone hoped for. It’s too bad that so many of todays mainstream western conservative don’t see it that way and aren’t willing to work with the progress that’s been made. Candidate Trump saw it, and expressed his willingness to do exactly that at the time.
I’ve also never understood why so many “conservatives” have been so willing to lock-step with the frothing moonbat Left on so many current issues, Putin, Assad, Arab Spring, China & Saudi Arabia good, Russia bad………and so on.
Maxim 29:The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. No more. No less.
“Like him or not Putin is the by-product of 70 years of communist rule collapsed overnight.”
No Putin was an enforcer for that rule not merely a product.
He is product of an abuse stepfather (officially father) who was an NKVD officer in Estonia (three guesses what he was doing there, actually since it is you you can have a few extra). He is product of step mother (officially mother) who lost her children in Leningrad siege and barely survived it herself. He is product of Leningrad street who was admitted too pioneers two years after the normal kids because young criminals were kept out.
As a kid he dreamed of being a secret agent, didn’t quite work out. He got into KGB but was seen as unsuitable for foreign deployment. They only sent him to Dresden (East Germany). When communism fell and he got back to leningrad he barely had enough saved for a used Volga. He went to work in city hall and soon become a millionaire. Oz mentions above the food shipments, this was just a tip of the iceberg. Yes he looted everything. Sold Soviet wealth at dumping prices to customers who understood how to do business in russia. Was involved in drug trafficking on global scale. He advanced through all the steps of political ladder of mountains of corpses. He started to eliminate the opposition long before he become a president.
“For those that hate both Putin and Communism, you need to go back and study the conditions that allowed Communism to take hold and what 70 years of it does to a nation.”
Tell us please what did communism do to that nation that hasn’t been done before by all successful rullers of this nation sinece the time of Mongols?
Heh, I guess you expected Ghandi to emerge from the ashes.
Well at least have an opinion. Although as usual you completely missed mine, intentional or unintentional I don’t know, so whatever.
“I absolutely adore the Russian people. the huge sacrifices in 41-45 mean *that* nation takes the biggest portion of credit for that victory.”
Yes, the Russians were most responsible for defeating Nazi Germany. They were also most responsible for WWII for signing the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR.
They lost big when Operation Barbarossa was launched because Stalin had murdered huge numbers of the Red Army’s office corp. They were sacrificing even before Germany fired a shot at them!
And no they didn’t sacrifice like the west sacrificed, like Canada and the U.S.A. sacrificed. We could have stayed in Fortress America and skipped WWII.
Germany was planning to kill them all. All the Russians, all the Slavs. They fought to prevent that. Those that died, died to save themselves and for vengeance. The sacrifice would have happened had they lost. We saved the Russians by taking part in WWII. Then we spent the next 70 years spending blood and treasure keeping the Russians from taking over the world, something not even the Nazis planned to do.
Knight 99 said, “For those that hate both Putin and Communism, you need to go back and study the conditions that allowed Communism to take hold and what 70 years of it does to a nation.”
The Bolshviks promised “Bread and Peace”. I’ve read of the conditions. I’ve read of the Russian Civil War, too. The good guys lost.
Then the Russians brought on ‘The Terror’. They murdered another 45 million of their own people.
right on several points, note I say ’41-45′ not ’39-45′.
however, had the huns succeeded in Europe, pacified and exploited that continent to the hilt, their scientists and engineers AND those of envious foreign nations (except jews) would have come up with nuke missiles by, oh about 1950. THEN they conquer the world by demonstrating the accuracy of said ICBMs aka V4 V5 etc.
but essentially you are right, a lot of the sacrifice was their (ie Stalin’s) own doing. trading territory AND LIVES for time. Stalingrad, Moscow, etc cost both sides dearly. and that was herr hitlers doing. the huns played on Stalin’s paranoia like a fiddle, planting fake evidence of disloyalty on his commanders to get them shot by the russkies. interesting how power mad dictators are oftentimes their own worst enemy.
No I expect you to recognize that Pootin isn’t a product, he is a producer. What shaped him wasn’t as much communism as abuse, violence and poverty. He is first and foremost a cynical criminal with typical for career criminals background (broken home, poverty etc). His ruthlessness isn’t the result of KGB training, in KGB he has merely applied what he learned on the streets and that mentality of a street thug stayed with him for life.
“They were also most responsible for WWII for signing the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR.”
Utter nonsense. The non-aggression pact happened only after Britain and France had already sold out to appeasement in Munich in 1938. Up to that time, Stalin was perfectly ready and willing to join the military coalition against Hitler. After Munich, USSR had no choice but to do a deal with the devil. The western democracies caved in over Czechoslovakia, convincing everyone that they had no intention of seriously opposing Hitler, ever.
Moreover, the war was going to happen anyway, regardless of what the USSR did. The only question was one of timing. Mussolini had been given to understand by Hitler that it wasn’t to happen until 1942. The Franco-British refusal to cave on Poland the way they had the year before over Czechoslovakia caught everyone by surprise.
The Germans had no interest in conquering the world. Their goal was protecting and preserving their race and culture.
As a history buff, I’d have thought you would have read Mein Kampf. In it, Hitler talks about the sellout of German culture and the White Race by Liberal Democratic politicians. The whole goal of the 3rd Reich was to preserve what was being destroyed piecemeal.
You know, the sort of thing Frau Merkel is doing as Chancellor.
Wow, I actually agree with everyone here (re anti-Putin comments). He is a thug and a murderer. So why the pro-Trump sentiment? For a guy why who admires Putin, or at least until very recently? Oh, and nobody loves communism anymore (OK, maybe 200 in the whole country).
If Trump does nothing else, he is a hero for ending the Obama agenda and preventing Hilary from being President.
Hilary promised to continue the Obama agenda, in spades.
Given Trump’s defanging of the EPA, he has also derailed UN Agenda 21, for now. It’s behind schedule because of him.
“Moreover, the war was going to happen anyway, regardless of what the USSR did”
Well, yes.
However, the non-aggression pact moved it forward.
The Nazis wanted Danzig back, it was majority German. They also had planned to destroy the Soviets and killed all of their people. However, the war needn’t have involved Western Europe unless France resisted the return of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany.
The Nazis certainly wanted to eliminate the Communists. All of them.
“Up to that time, Stalin was perfectly ready and willing to join the military coalition against Hitler.”
LOL Stalin has made it pretty clear that he wanted Poland destroyed since he took power. Up until Polish suicidal pact with France and UK, Hitler had little interest in a war against Poland. The Polish German relationship until about a year before war very friendly. France and UK needed Poland to serve as speed bump for Wermacht so they had more time to prepare for war. In an act of utter suicidal idiocy Polish leadership of that time decided to antagonize Hitler and then to reject his final (very reasonable) offer to avoid the war. In as late as 1937 or 38, Hitler was on the record saying that the only two armies he would like to have on his side were Yugoslavia and Poland.
“After Munich, USSR had no choice but to do a deal with the devil. ”
Which they did by invaded six countries between fall of 39 and summer of 41? Which they did by supplying Hitler’s war machine over this period? Even were panzers rolled east there were still Soviet trains with supplies and raw materials heading for Germany.
“The Nazis wanted Danzig back, it was majority German. ”
Not just that. Hitler’s final offer to Poland involved three points.
1. Danzing going to Germany, it was not only 90% German but the League of Nations mandate was to expire in 1940 was to be followed by a referendum which would surely result in the city going to Germany. hitler just wnated it one year earlier.
2. Rejection by Poland of the suicidal pact they signed with France and UK (he never truly understood why was the Polish leadership so detached from reality to sign in in the first place).
3. The autobahn though Polish territory connecting Germany with Prussia. In return he offered Poland a railway connecting Gdynia (Polish only important Baltic port) through Danzing to the rest of Poland (at that time there was no high Capacity connection between Gdynia and the rest of Poland that did not go through Danzing.
Those were very reasonable demands that had Polish leadership was not blinded by delusions of own strength and delusions of importance of pact with France and UK should have signed.
When state collapses, or when there is no meaningful state, there is Barbarism. There is no law. The are no recognized freedoms or rights. The strong dominate the weak with violence.
From Barbarism and chaos, to Despotism and order.
Despotism brings a ruler, who establishes law and order. The people have very limited freedoms, and the law is enforced through constant coercion and extreme violence.
From Despotism to a Republic.
A nation replaces the ruler with a ruling body. Government becomes less centralized, and more representative of the people. Freedom, within the law, increases. Individual rights are identified and guaranteed by law. Law is still enforced by coercion and violence, although with increased freedoms and rights, there is less violence and coercion, overall.
The problem is into what form does the Republic evolve next. Socialist republics typically try to evolve into communist states, or Hive type societies. Everybody follows the law voluntarily, but individual freedoms largely non-existent and unnecessary. Everybody knows their function and they carry it out for the good of all. Those who question the Hive State are ejected or killed, often with the tacit approval of the citizen subjects. To each, their needs; from each, their abilities, without question. Society is governed by a permanent ruling elite, be it a family or party. Everybody recognizes that the ruling rules because that is their primary ability.
Capitalist republics should favor evolution into voluntarism. Voluntary societies don’t have permanent rulers. The rulers establish the law and then step down. The law is simple and comprehensible to all, and is enforced by reputation and market forces, or by individuals. All individuals are representatives of the state. Self-motivation and market forces keep society functioning smoothly and correct localized imbalances.
The end of a Republic is inevitable. It must evolve or collapse into barbarism or despotism.
Russia is evolving from the collapsed Soviet Republic. Their Republic collapsed as a result of internal conflicts, corruption, overregulation, stagnancy, and inefficiencies. Putin is the natural result. The Soviet Republic collapsed, and its constituent states elected leaders to navigate the chaos. Some have transitioned already to new Republics. Russia will likely do the same, in time. The transition from Despotism, with Putin and a puppet government, to an actual executive with a representative government, will happen.
I wonder if the U.S.A. will evolve into a Voluntary State before it shifts to far towards Socialism. I believe that our Republic is approaching the end point.
North Korea appears to be close to finishing its evolution into a Hive State. If it can last another generation or two, the people will have no concept of freedom or rights, whatsoever. This evolution can only be maintained, however, through isolation. Contact with foreigners is hazardous to maintaining order.
Clonialista >
“No I expect you to recognize …………”
I don’t give a flying f*ck what you expect me to recognize, I’m not one of your kids you think you can browbeat into your way of thinking.
I normally skip your posts, and mentally kick myself afterwards for the very few times I have bothered to engage you in what you consider an “argument”.
When state collapses, or when there is no meaningful state, there is Barbarism. There is no law. The are no recognized freedoms or rights. The strong dominate the weak with violence.
From Barbarism and chaos, to Despotism and order.
Despotism brings a ruler, who establishes law and order. The people have very limited freedoms, and the law is enforced through constant coercion and extreme violence.
From Despotism to a Republic.
A nation replaces the ruler with a ruling body. Government becomes less centralized, and more representative of the people. Freedom, within the law, increases. Individual rights are identified and guaranteed by law. Law is still enforced by coercion and violence, although with increased freedoms and rights, there is less violence and coercion, overall.
The problem is into what form does the Republic evolve next. Socialist republics typically try to evolve into communist states, or Hive type societies. Everybody follows the law voluntarily, but individual freedoms largely non-existent and unnecessary. Everybody knows their function and they carry it out for the good of all. Those who question the Hive State are ejected or killed, often with the tacit approval of the citizen subjects. To each, their needs; from each, their abilities, without question. Society is governed by a permanent ruling elite, be it a family or party. Everybody recognizes that the ruling rules because that is their primary ability.
Capitalist republics should favor evolution into voluntarism. Voluntary societies don’t have permanent rulers. The rulers establish the law and then step down. The law is simple and comprehensible to all, and is enforced by reputation and market forces, or by individuals. All individuals are representatives of the state. Self-motivation and market forces keep society functioning smoothly and correct localized imbalances.
The end of a Republic is inevitable. It must evolve or collapse into barbarism or despotism.
Russia is evolving from the collapsed Soviet Republic. Their Republic collapsed as a result of internal conflicts, corruption, overregulation, stagnancy, and inefficiencies. Putin is the natural result. The Soviet Republic collapsed, and its constituent states elected leaders to navigate the chaos. Some have transitioned already to new Republics. Russia will likely do the same, in time. The transition from Despotism, with Putin and a puppet government, to an actual executive with a representative government, will happen.
I wonder if the U.S.A. will evolve into a Voluntary State before it shifts to far towards Socialism. I believe that our Republic is approaching the end point.
North Korea appears to be close to finishing its evolution into a Hive State. If it can last another generation or two, the people will have no concept of freedom or rights, whatsoever. This evolution can only be maintained, however, through isolation. Contact with foreigners is hazardous to maintaining order.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.
Attributed to Alexander Tytler
“Those were very reasonable demands…”
Completely delusional statement from you. The Polish dictatorship was aware of Mein Kampf too, and they knew full well what Lebensraum meant. They understood that, just as Sudetenland was only the beginning of the absorption of Czechoslovakia, Danzig was only the beginning of the demolition of their country as well.
As for Oz: “However, the war needn’t have involved Western Europe unless France resisted the return of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany.”
Oh get real. Hitler said it many times; it was a war for revenge for Compiegne and Versailles. As for Britain, he made it clear that he wanted all of Germany’s former overseas colonies back as well. You’re making the same mistake Chamberlain did at Munich, assuming that at some point megalomania can ever be appeased.
Grey >
Well said, a much more eloquently laid out version of my “in a nutshell” comment earlier.
Putin “the totalitarian styled leader” is the product of the Soviet vacuum that was left after it’s collapse.
The story here is the collapse of the Soviet Union and how it’s evolving, not whether Putin was gang raped as a boy and became a totalitarian.
The only people not evolving are those on the right still stuck in the Soviet era mentality, along with those on the Liberal left who despise the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Republic did NOT collapse.
The USSR was always Russia. Russia with a bunch of other nations from which they could draw cannon fodder and use as human shields.
Russia saw in the ’90s that they could not win the arms race against the U.S., so the Soviet Politburo voted the USSR out of existence.
It was a PLANNED EVENT.
Russia rebranded, just like all the International Corporations were doing in the early ’90s. That’s all.
And like the other International Corporations in the ’90s they cut loose all their indebted and losing subsidiaries that were dragging them down and keeping them from competing.
Russia then gathered all their best military hardware back from their losing subsidiaries; their capital ships, their submarines, their nuclear weapons, all of their front line war planes, main battle tanks, artillery, etc. and proceeded to begin a secret arms race all the while sending out their Merchants of Death like Victor Bout to sell the rusting moldering Cold War stock piles to any War Lord that could pay or barter for them any where on the Globe.
This kept NATO busy putting out the fires that Russia constantly lit, all the while lauding Ronald Reagan for winning the Cold War(which NEVER Ended) and the West drew down their troop numbers, cut their defense spending, and cut back on high tech R&D while Russia increased their own R&D, but mostly increased the numbers of spies in the West that they used to loot our military high tech secrets with.
“The Polish dictatorship was aware of Mein Kampf too, and they knew full well what Lebensraum meant. ”
Meanwhile until the suicide pact with France and UK the relationship with Hitler was excellent. Tell me, oh smart one, what did Poland gain from siding with France and UK against Hitler? How was signing the pact more reasonable than appeasing Hitler?
“They understood that, just as Sudetenland was only the beginning of the absorption of Czechoslovakia, Danzig was only the beginning of the demolition of their country as well.”
Danzig wasn’t Polish you numbnuts! It was a free city under League of Nations mandate. The mandate was to expire in 1940 and was to be followed by a referendum. What do you think the result of the referendum would be in a city 90% German?
Funny you bring Czechoslovakia as an example. The only country in Eastern Europe where the population was increasing every year between 39 and 45. Meanwhile Poland lost about 20% of her population during that period. Yes the suicidal bravery worked oh so well for Poland. Instead of doing everything to avoid war with Hitler and to avoid at all cost a war on two fronts they took the principled stand and genuinely expected to prevail! And what did they get in return for all this noble sacrifice? They were treated about as badly as (if not worse than) Hitler’s allies in Eastern Europe like Romania, Bulgaria or Hungary.
“As for Britain, he made it clear that he wanted all of Germany’s former overseas colonies back as well.”
Oh? Is that why Rudolph Hess flew to England in May ’41 and spent the rest of his life after the war in Spandau in isolation? He didn’t fly over to sue for peace? Why was he kept in isolation for decades, the only prisoner in Spandau? What was it that Hess had to say that the Allies didn’t want the world to know as late as 1987?
That the wider war was unnecessary is what Hess had to say. Only the USSR vetoed giving Hess compassionate release and Germany hadn’t invaded the Soviet Union until over a month after Hess had flown to England.
The Nazis did not want the wider war.
Thanks for the link Kate, a good reasoned and thought out piece. For those of us that have been, worked and tried to immerse ourselves in the hugeness that is Russia and its amazingly complex yet simple history over the millennia, then Caldwell does I suspect resonate. I’m going to guess that along with myself Knight 99 falls into this category.
“The USSR was always Russia. Russia with a bunch of other nations from which they could draw cannon fodder and use as human shields.”
Precisely, Soviet Union was nothing else but Russian Empire under new management. The dream of Soviet Union becoming more than that, pretty much died in 1920. Which coincidently was why Stalin was pretty clear from then on about the need to eliminate Poland once and for all and why Polish junta in 1939 was suicidally stupid.
“I’m not one of your kids”
That’s for sure, my children were taught logic. Besides I had standards before they were conceived.
Putin is in control, period, all you have to do is look up what he did when he came into power in ~2000. He gathered the Oligarch’s, asked them for their cooperation, and he jailed at least one who would not. Once he set the example, they, for the most part fell in line.
As well, Russia does not believe in Global Warming, Russian scientists have been clear, we are headed into another Maunder Minimum, his strategy is clear, the Mediterranean is of clear importance. And thus Crimea, absolutely required control of that port.
Turkey is as well required to be under control. Erdogan has been told this, and he follows Putin’s instructions, The Dardanelles Strait and the canals at Istanbul must remain open for Russian transit. If Erdogan threatens either of these, he will not last long.
As well, as the summers in the Russian bread belt continue to shorten, control over the fertile lands of the middle east will continue to become more important. Russia is not in the middle east for just the oil, Russia is there for agriculture as well.
Ranting about Hess does nothing for your general argument, unless you’re basing your entire case on one solitary lunatic. The German peace overtures were made by the German embassy in Switzerland.
Colonialista seems just as bewildered as you, pretending that a Danzig referendum would have any effect on the intentions of either country. He also seems bewildered by the term ‘lebensraum’.
Colonialista >
No “Logic” ouch that hurts, I was expecting at least a – “you’re a poopy pants” – out of you.
Even cgh got a “numbnuts” as proof your articulate point making brilliance.
Oh well lets all move onto the finer complexities of political WW2 and hear what “poopy thrower” thinks about it all. Heh heh heh.
The Soviet Republic did NOT collapse.
Yes, still have the hammer and sickle on the front of their parliament and a quarter of their gov’t is official communist party. The communist contrast with the rest of the world is less so because the rest of the world is more communist, not Russia being less communist.
Yes yes keep repeating ‘lebensraum’ to your hart’s content as if that was an end all arguments. Find me where in Mein Kampf Hitler talks about Poland? Find me examples of anti-Polish sentiment from Nazi press or political speeches before fall 1938. And what happened in the fall of 1938? A Polish suicide pact happened. If you think that trying to do everything to avoid a war with Hitler wasn’t in Polish interest at the time why don’t you cough up a better strategy?
Coincidently you understand that depending on flavor of the time lebensraum included for example … Sweden? Surely not a flexible concept to be adjusted depending on geopolitical circumstances.
“The German peace overtures were made by the German embassy in Switzerland.”
No doubt, no doubt. Different tracks and routes for negotiation are also, no doubt, a new invention.
Oh and calling what I said about Hess a rant. Boy, you sure are sharp with the zingers, you really put me in my place.
No doubt Hess just flew to England for some fish and chips and some of that legendary English beer.
Still though, it’s a puzzle that he was kept incommunicado in Spandau for 40 years in solitary confinement.
Even death camp commandant Franz Stangl was allowed to be interviewed, and he ran Sobibor and Treblinka.
So why did they have large groups of bureaucrats in training for ruling the United States?
If nothing else, when a political system collapses, another one is willing is willing to fill the void. And for some reason, it comes acceptable to try to emulate the failed political system.
It has given us most of the political “leaders” we have enjoyed in recent history.
So what’s the real difference with the voters that voted obama, trudeau or Putin and the ones that voted Trump?