Putin the Con Man

 Putin made a big speech the other day. When I heard what he was spouting on about, I laughed. Basically he was saying I'm Mr Big, I'm going to stay as Mr Big and if I can't be Mr Big, I'm going to end civilization. Its just like some pathetic school kid, who if he cant be the striker, is going to take his ball home and then no one can play.

Why does anyone fall for this comic performance from some jumped up bully who has run out of ideas and whose solution to everything is violence, followed by more violence?

Well he has reasons to be cheerful these days. He has killed off the political opposition, intimidated all Russian critics into silence, has just got a cash bale-out loan from China and his big pile of North Koran shells has worked wonders on the front line. This, together with Netanyahu using his tactics in Palestine and Americas obsessed with their own internal divisions, its all looking up for Putin and his Military Dictatorship.

However, I'm not concerned, as his constant talk of nuclear weapons shows how weak his position is. What it really means is that “my army can only advance like a snail, my navy is refusing to leave port and my air force keeps getting shot down, but I still have some old historic nukes left over from a previous era, so don’t even think about it”. At the end of the day, nukes are all he has. Its a pity that nukes are so destructive that he can’t use them, as it would mean the end of Russia, and Ukraine isn’t worth the end of Russia, not even for Putin.

So his power is ultimately based on myth, which relies on constant creation of fear, apathy of the majority and non stop projection of the illusion of power to instill a sense of impotence in individuals. If you can understand what he’s doing, that it’s all a psychological con trick, he has no power at all. You will then realize that he is the minority and people like you, are in fact, the overwhelming majority. 

Putin has chosen a path from which he cannot escape. His fate is already sealed. His strategy of fear will fall apart when his own people realise there is nothing to fear and absolutely nothing to respect. There is a much better option to his reign of terror. I give him  two years at the most. Arrested by his own Generals or strung up on a lamp post, when the people see through his con trick and loose their fear and realise they are the true power in Russia, they will bring the house down.    

PS if you want to lose your fear of Putin, just imagine him trousers down, sitting on the loo trying to pass a difficult stool. Whether he ends civilization if he fails, I will leave to your imagination.

Putin's Fantasy

 

Putin has created a world of delusion and fantasy which is totally detached from reality, but in which all Russians must believe. In this imagined world, his obsession with gaining total control over Ukraine, means that the west, who is against this idea, wants to destroy not just his ambition, but all of Russia, and to prove this, facts and truths are either ignored, distorted or presented out of context to maintain and up hold the delusion. However, the longer this goes on, the more and facts and truths arise, making it ever more difficult for the delusion to be  maintained. Eventually, there will be so much evidence against the delusion, that one day reality will come crashing down upon Putin.

One of the principal delusions of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is to de-nazisify Ukraine. After nearly two years of war, how many Nazis has he found? How many have been brought to trial? What evidence has been uncovered? I’ve seen nothing in the news, so in this respect, isn't his war a complete failure?

Another principal aim is to demilitarise Ukraine. So does Ukraine have smaller or larger armed forces now or before his illegal invasion? It looks to me that Ukraine is now totally committed to fighting Russian forces and completely militarised with ungraded western weapons. His erroneous strategy has completely back fired.

Putin is now calling his “special military operation”  a civil war between brothers - but Ukraine was an independent country before his invasion. His war is not Russians fighting Russians. And does he think that after the war, however it ends, Ukrainians will ever want to be Russian after all of his violence against them?

Putin has turned  Russia into a military dictatorship,  the only justification for which, is the existence of a formidable enemy that must be confronted. So America and its partners in Nato are portrayed as the enemy from which he, the hero, must protect the motherland. The fact that America and Europe are busy dealing with their own problems and didn’t really care what was going on in Russia until he used full military force against another country and thus became a potential threat to them, did they start thinking about Russia again. And after two years of the Ukraine war, aren't most in the west losing interest in the war?

Putin says America is a threat to Russia. So why is it dithering with its future payments to Ukraine? Isn’t this evidence that America doesn't really want confrontation with Russia?

Putin says he now wants peace in Ukraine, so why aren’t Russian diplomats flying around the world drumming up support for his peace plan? This is just a stalling tactic to woo others who sensibly want peace, especially with his Presidential show election coming up.

Putin says Russia is stronger now because of western sanctions, so why is food getting more expensive and spare parts for its cars and planes becoming  scarce. Also his army has taken a hammering and is full of  unmotivated under-trained reservists, his air force wont go near the front, his navy abandoned Crimea and the rest of Russia practically undefended.

Putin says Russians are free. But he takes away their passports to prevent them from traveling abroad and doesn’t allow any criticism of himself or the war, and doesn’t allow anyone to return home from the front. He is also preparing for a new mobilisation after his publicity stunt of an election. (this has been postponed for now by using criminals and North Koreans). 

Putin says the war is a tragedy - but it is one of his making and one he could stop tomorrow if he wanted. He is the tragedy.

Putin thinks that the west is decadent and will lose interest in Ukraine. Well we in the west don’t like war and have learnt that war only brings destruction, misery and death and is ultimately futile. But he is wrong to think that we wont fight for freedom and democracy if we have to. We also know that Russia is now suffering and the longer his pointless war goes on, ordinary Russians are learning that his war is ultimately futile too. Putin’s biggest delusion is that his war will keep him in power.

Putin thinks his military dictatorship is better than a free democracy and Russia fully supports him and loves him. So why does he have to control the internet, press, TV and all media outlets? Why is Russia slowly rotting at its core?

Putin wants to think that the attack on Crocus Hall, which is the same format as so many other Islamic State atrocities around the world, was carried out by Ukraine. This fits perfectly with his delusion. However the evidence is that it was carried out by Islamic State. The US warned of the high risk of an attack, but the US helping Russia doesn't fit with his delusion, and so the advice was ignored. Islamic State claimed responsibility and posted film evidence of the shootings, but Putin ignores this. The captured terrorists don't look Ukrainian, but as they were heading away from their homeland in the east, Putin tells every one in Russia that they were heading for Ukraine, where a route through the Russian front lines had been  prepared.  The fact is that this attack does not fit his delusion. The truth is, he is so obsessed with Ukraine that he has left Russia weakened to attacks from the east, a situation that his over stretched military and intelligence services will now have to deal with. 

Putin thinks that constantly reminding the west of his nuclear weapons will keep them out of the war, but no one takes this seriously. We know this would be using a sledge hammer to crack a nut, and would bring Nato into the war and even more pain for Russia.

But his greatest delusion, is to think that using violence is going to make him, Russia, and the world a better place. Violence will only lead to more violence.

World Leaders - do we really need them?

 

I had to smile at the lead article in the Economist this week, that was trying to advise its readers what China was going to do about the Ukrainian war. It clearly had no idea how China was going to react, but I suppose  they have to make up some sort of nonsense to fill their pages*. However,they shouldn't worry, as like most managers, leaders, and heads of state such as Mr Putin and Mr Xi Jinping, they haven’t got a clue what they are doing either, they are just better than the rest of us at pretending they do.

For example, the book "On time and water" contains an interview from the 14th Dalai Lama from 2010. In this, his Holiness predicts confidently in his happy laughing style that the 21st Century will be one of peace and that China will become progressively more liberal and tolerant to alternative thinking. Well the Dalai Lama is a wise man, and the 21st century isn't over yet, but when it comes to prediction I'm sure the people of Ukraine and Hong Kong would see him as just human like the rest of us.

Why do you think there have been so many old Etonions as British Prime ministers? Its not because they are taught the skills the job requires, but are taught how to project an image of competence by demonstrating their skills of debate, education and confidence which hide the fact that they are just as useless as the rest of us. It was scientists who got us through the pandemic, not Boris. Implications of Brexit - he had no idea, so he just made it up as he when along with a confident joke or two. Thanks Boris.

Actors and comedians also make great leaders. Ragan and Zelensky spring to mind. Play the part that is required and all will be well. I grew up in the cold war of the 1980's and used to love a show called "Not the Nine o'clock news". Ragan was portrayed as a mindless idiot (which wasn't really fair) and my favorite song written by Mel Smith went "if I had a bomb, and a place to drop it from, I'd drop it on you world leaders, drop it on you world leaders." It would probably be banned today. (I wonder if the internet security algorithms will pick this up).    

I’m becoming more anarchist in my thinking every day. Anarchists are no threat to anyone – they can never get organised to do any harm! Who needs leaders anyway, like the mafia, they all use force to control our resources - have you tried not paying your taxes recently? Ants have been doing just fine without leaders for millions of years by sharing and recognising what needs to be done and just getting on with it.  Read Ant Encounters by D M Gordon if you don't believe me.

Once again many thanks for reading my nonsense, it takes my mind off the unbearable  “misery and folly of the world” as Thomas Carlisle called it. I said in my last post that that would be my "last post" but when I see such rubbish being written as that in the Economist magazine, I can't help but think why shouldn't I chip in with my own. 

*(Incidentally, based on the fact that the Chinese do not worship a God but do worship money, and that the Chinese Communist Party stays in power only because it continues to raise the living standards of the Chinese people, I predict that China will react to the Russian Ukrainian war in order to boost its economy. It will not help Russia and stay neutral thus keeping access to western markets.) 

Update Oct 2022. Boris has been booted out for breaking his own covid containment laws only to be replaced by another useless leader, Liz Truss. Fortunately this economic illiterate could only fool the aged tory membership, but not the financial markets, who saw through the unrealistic policies and forced her to resign. It's amazing that the people who voted for her are such poor judges of character and this sorry saga only proves that democracy only works if the people voting have reasonable level of understanding of the world we live in and don't purely vote in their own self interest that is based on prejudice and delusion.