Russia-Ukraine War and the garbage dump of ideas about it

I could spend a hundred pages detailing the garbage dump.

The mixture contains all sorts of opinions about Trump and Biden and neocons and Putin and Zelensky and Republicans and Democrats and US funding. If you like Trump, you sort of like Putin, and if you like Biden you sort of like Zelensky…

Blah-blah.

I want to sidestep all that and make one different point:

Russia, under Putin, is living in the past. They’re Mother Russia, they’re the Russian EMPIRE.

Meaning: Ever since the fall of the USSR, they haven’t been able to become a modern society. At the top of the government—Putin—they’re still the heroes of World War 2 and they’re still the Soviet Union and they still deserve to get back the countries they lost.

They have to be proud about something, and because a roaring economy and prosperity aren’t it, they’re still beating their chests about military might. Not just on the side, but out front. That’s Putin.

They’re trying to live on imagined past glory. That’s Putin.

Russian State media are talking about Empire and getting those (criminally conquered) lost countries in Eastern Europe back where they belong; under Russian control. That’s Putin.

He was the ideal target for all sorts of ops, aiming to get him to do what he wanted to do anyway: invade the Ukraine.

And yes, I know that just like the people who believe every single move Trump makes is a planned work of genius leading to long-range victory for The Good…there are people who believe the same thing about Putin. He’s the grandmaster chess player who sees up the road a hundred years, and the obvious depletion and grinding decay of his army and his country are merely opening pawn moves on the board, and the heavy victories will eventually become apparent. Right. Sure. Uh-huh.

Meanwhile, Russian society ACTUALLY can’t become prosperous. They’d rather salute all those statues of WW2 generals still standing in parks everywhere. That’s Putin. Wake up and smell his military dictatorship. His fantasy about still being the USSR. His holy crusade to manifest the destiny of Russian Empire.

There are people who think the solution is forcing Russia to collapse, to fall apart. That’s not the answer. The answer is helping and making Russia come into the present moment; making it prosper, despite Putin. Making Russia see there is an option other than war.

No one can say that would be easy. But it’s the solution.

Putin is fighting a war in 1950. Russia needs peace and prosperity in 2025.

Putin is a KGB historian. Tucker Carlson was surprised to be treated to that fantasy history, when he sat down to interview The Man, who took Tucker’s first question and then droned on for 20 minutes about former national glory and how everything he was doing was to right wrongs of the past.

People have to believe in something to get them out of bed in the morning, and that’s Putin’s bag. That’s where he lives in his own mind. So that’s where the top of the Russian government lives.

Why is that so hard to see? Because of the partisan and political garbage dump: