One of the most celebrated personages in the history of the West. He revolutionized military organization and training; sponsored the Napoleonic Code, the prototype of later civil-law codes; reorganized education; and established the long-lived Concordat with the papacy. He was the moving spirit behind the intertwined series of conflicts known as the Napoleonic Wars, which had revolutionary repercussions, both militarily and politically, in Europe as well as other parts of the world. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Napoleon-I
Exasperated, the XIX-th century France had decided to change everything.
Please note that despite the rather inept leadership offered by the last three kings, France was the dominant European power of the moment. Economically, demographically and militarily. Exasperated people tend to make rather poor decisions.
Napoleon Bonaparte was permitted to rise to power. To absolute power… He yielded that power in such a way that he had angered most of his neighbors. Most of France’s neighbors… Which had banded together and defeated him. Twice.
Which was a premiere. A bully put down by an alliance… A bunch of autocrats put off by another who decided they had enough.
The same template was used against Germany’s dictators. Both Wilhelm II and Hitler had been put down by coalitions. By people fed up with their antics. A somewhat similar thing happened during the Cold War. A bullying regime, the Soviets, was kept in check by an informal ‘coalition of the willing’. ‘Informal’ in the sense that NATO was only the ‘tip of the iceberg. In reality, the Soviet Union had been defeated by the ‘free world’ working in concert.
Nowadays, ‘living in interesting times’, we witness another coalition taking shape. Three authoritarian leaders ‘pushed together’ by a fourth one… By the antics perpetrated by a guy pretending to uphold freedom. Absolute freedom…!
Putin wants to survive while Trump wants the same thing. Xi also wants Putin to survive…
Without Putin(ism), Europe wouldn’t spend a dime on weapons. On American weapons! America would have to develop and maintain alone the hardware needed to keep Xi at bay.
Once Putin gone, the Russian people will completely turn their attention towards Europe. Leaving the ‘Chinese model’ stranded. In limbo…
What do we want?!? Who cares?!? But now, that you’ve asked…
We want America back! The already great America… The one wise enough to save Europe from itself. Twice! The one wise enough to help Japan back on its feet after WWII. The one wise, and brave, enough to defend South Korea. The one wise enough to understand that behaving like a bull in a China shop might be fun. For a while… but inexorably produces a fine mess… Specially when the bull owns much of the china being traded in that shop!
America does have a huge responsibility in maintaining the world in a working state. For the simple reason that America’s wealth depends, directly and indirectly, on the smooth functioning of the increasingly integrated world market. Forgetting this, and concentrating your attention on ‘particular interests’, vested or not, is nothing short of blinding yourself. Of shutting reality out!
And we want Europe back! Europe has already done the same mistake America is about to commit. Behaved like the bull in the China shop. Literally. Then, overwhelmed by the consequences, left out without clearing up the mess.
Finally, but equally important, we need China – along with all other ‘wishful thinkers’ – to learn. To understand that behaving like a bull in the China shop, even if you do it at home, doesn’t help anybody. Not in the long run. Everybody, including the bull, ends up in tatters…
“Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia acknowledged “constructive changes” in the U.S. position on the conflict. He told the council the resolution was “not an ideal one,” but “a starting point for future efforts towards peaceful settlement.””
By sending the Red Army to invade Ukraine, Putin had crossed a red line. The rest of the world noticed.
Some played possum. ‘Let’s stay out of it. And maybe, maybe, get something for ourselves’. The majority said “No! This is too much.”
Russia does have veto-power in the UN Security Council. Hence the dead-lock.
The Biden led US and the EU had chosen to support Ukraine. And to sanction the Putin regime.
Every day, people are being killed. Soldiers on the front and civilians under aerial bombardment. Reasonable individuals want the fighting to stop.
Easier said than done. Putin might say: ‘My bad!’ and tell his soldiers to go home. Ukraine might agree, on its own volition, with enough of Putin’s demands. And, hopefully, get at least a respite. Or those helping Ukraine might say: ‘We had enough. From now on, you’re on your own.’
Putin is not yet ready to back off. Ukraine is not yet ready to cave in. ‘Somebody’ is getting ready to act as a mediator.
What are the immediate consequences?
Putin is back. No longer an outcast!
Is the rest of the world ready? For it to go back? Back to what was going on before WWI but on a far wider scale?
“Trump, a Florida resident, has said he would vote against the ballot measure, after initially appearing to suggest he would vote in favor.” Reuters, 2024-11-06
For me, Trump – along with all other ‘strong willed’ politicians – are more of a symptom than a cause. And a cause, indeed, but first and foremost a symptom.
The Economist news letter, October 10th, 2024
One way to figure out the dynamics of what’s going on around/to us is ‘resources, structure, agency’. For lack of a proper term, I just sequenced the steps of the figuring out process.
For anything to happen, that thing has to start from ‘somewhere’. Some resources are needed at the start of anything. For anything to happen in a certain manner, that something has to happen inside a ‘space’. Which ‘space’ ‘behaves’ according to a a set of ‘rules’. For anything to happen, it has to start. To be put into motion. And, at the end, that ‘anything’ – already a ‘something’ – will produce a set of consequences. A ‘feedback’, supposedly carefully taken into consideration by those who had experienced it. And need to move forward.
Coming back to Trump, he couldn’t have happened, say, twenty years ago. The world, America in this case, had to be ready/readied for him. Well, in a sense, America – the American media, to be more precise – had worked hard to make him possible.
So should we blame the media for the advent of Trump?
Hm…
Remember the Apprentice? The show which made Trump famous? That show was possible, and made Trump famous, because so many Americans watched it. For whatever reasons. By watching the Apprentice, America readied itself for Trump. For President Trump.
Then all those hosting reality-TV shows have a fair chance of becoming President? After all, Zelensky also started as a TV personality…
Not so fast! For anybody to become President, there are a few prerequisites. That guy has to be famous. That guy has to ‘push the right buttons’. To identify them. And to be willing to push them, regardless of any of the consequences.
Trump was famous enough. And callous enough to make use of some of the prevalent conditions present when he decided to make a run for the Oval Office. Birtherism was already present. Trump only gave it a louder voice. Abortion was already a hot issue. Trump only changed his mind about it. From “very pro-choice” in 1999 to “pro-life” in 2011. But the most important factor which made President Trump possible was public discontent. MAGA could not become such a powerful slogan if so many people were not already feeling left behind.
“The share of wealth owned by the bottom 50% hit its low point of 0.4% in 2011”
Coincidence?
ABC News, 2016, September 16, “How Donald Trump Perpetuated the Birther Movement for Years”
Trumpification? In a sense, yes. Trump did identify the circumstances prevalent when he made up his mind as opportunities. As resources towards his wishes. Then used the already existing ‘rules’ – and political customs – in his favor. But can we pretend he had Trumpified politics? Can we pretend he changed the way politics was done in order to serve his purposes?
Or it would be more appropriate to say that a majority – as per how America elects its President – of “We, the People” have allowed him to do as he pleased? For whatever reasons?
My first hand experience has driven me to understand: That ‘government’ – which is nothing but an instrument – will be hijacked whenever ‘the people’ doesn’t pay enough attention. Or has been incapacitated. One way or another. That communism is just another pretext used by those yearning to hijack the government. And that those people would use any pretext to ‘prime’ the attention of those they want to use in their quest. In their quest to hijack the government. That democracy – the kind that works – is not about electing the best man for the job. For the simple reason that there’s no way to determine what that person will have to do! The actual things they will be confronted with! In practice, the really useful kind of democracy is that which makes it simple for the people to remove from power/refuse those obviously unfit for the task.
For instance, what’s currently going on in Venezuela. The people tries to remove Maduro from office and the incumbent president refuses to go.
Sounds familiar? Happened, tentatively, even where democracy was considered ‘too deep rooted to collapse’?
The third thing I understood living under a communist regime was that reproductive rights are very important. That if you want women to have more children, you have to make them ‘feel good’ about it! That banning abortion will get you nowhere. That banning abortion – and books – will only show your true nature.
I’m vocal about these three things. Including on FB. Exposing these ideas on FB made it so that I have friends who love Trump and friends who hate Trump. As a matter of fact and all things considered, I’d describe myself as a Republican rather than as a Democrat. A never-Trumper Republican…
A couple of days ago, the meme above had been shared by a FB friend of mine. A Democrat. Yesterday it was shared by a Trump die-hard.
Is this strange?
No, not really. We’re all people. Normal people concerned about the future. The current situation is the consequence of what we’ve done. Allowed ourselves to be divided into camps. By those willing to do anything in order to hijack the government. Even if only temporarily.
How many of you cringe when hearing ‘X party/candidate has won the elections’? Why do we continue to listen when the talking head/would be influencer makes such a horrible mistake? An electoral process is about us deciding our fate, not a pageant! Our collective fate! We, as a community/people, are supposed to be the winners, not any of the candidates/parties…
On the other hand, we must keep in mind that fakes are also facts. They exist, don’t they? Even more so, fake facts do engender consequences! In fact, it’s these very consequences which impart fact-hood to ‘successful’ fakes.
Also, it is high time for us to understand that this undermining might occur ‘naturally’. Due to our attention being distracted rather than ‘intentionally misguided’.
Read carefully, this means that the Supreme Court of the USA is telling the Colorado Supreme Court: ‘Stand down, this is a matter too important to be decided state by state! This has to be settled at the federal level’! Nota Bene, the gist of the matter – was Trump involved in insurrection? – remains in limbo! The Supreme Court says nothing which might enlighten us about this subject.
Do I have to remind you that up to 1865 it was legal, in some US states, for people to own other people? People could be lawfully owned as slaves… And “the people and their elected representatives” were OK with that. In some states! So OK that a war had to be won by those who were not OK with “elected representatives” having the power to determine whether people could be owned. Only after the conclusion of that war the 13th Amendment could be adopted! Enshrining each individual’s freedom to steer their own fate, within the confines of the law!
Fast forward back to our days.
When “elected representatives” – at state level – have been given back the power to determine how wide is the lawful space inside which a woman can dispose of her own body. When “elected representatives” – at the same state level – are denied the power to ascertain whether a president, after losing an election, has incited his supporters to storm the Capitol.
And who has done that? Who’s been determining what “the people and their elected representatives” might do at which level? A team of nine individuals named by various presidents and only vetted by the Senate? Who are judging according to their “own ardent views about the liberty that Americans should enjoy.“?!?
“The Reuters/Ipsos poll, which surveyed 4,414 adults nationwide online, showed a tight race in the November 2024 general election should Trump face Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection and is not expected to face serious competition for his party’s nomination.
Biden led Trump 37% to 35% in a hypothetical matchup, with the remaining 28% saying they weren’t sure who to pick or would vote for someone else or no one at all. Neither Biden nor Trump were widely liked by people outside their parties. Just 31% of independents had a favorable opinion of Trump and 32% thought as much about Biden. At 80 years old, Biden is the oldest U.S. president ever to sit in the White House, and 63% of Democrats in the poll agreed with a statement that he was too old to work in government. Thirty-seven percent disagreed.
Still, Biden leads the Democratic contest by even more than Trump leads the Republican field, with 63% of Democrats’ support compared with 15% for anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”
What’s going on here? What happened with/in the greatest/most powerful democracy on Earth? Why has the American People allowed itself to be split in half? Each of those halves bowing to its own idol…
Only because ‘they had avocados’?!?
And what about Reagan? He was right, after all… Trump was the government, wasn’t he?
Reagan was incomplete. Government is nothing but a tool. A tool for the society to govern itself with. “of the people, by the people, for the people“. But also a tool for a dictator to exploit a country. Blaming the tool never takes the blamer out of the ‘unpleasant’ situation.
A more complete statement would have been:
‘Any unchecked government tends, sooner rather than later, to become a problem.’
The key word here being ‘unchecked’, not government. For the same reason which had prompted ‘god’ to warn us:
Any graven image you will ever make will inevitably be incomplete. Not because of your incompetence but because of my infinite complexity. I, your god, am infinite. Hence incomprehensible. You might glimpse some, or even a lot, about my ‘true’ nature but you’ll never find out enough. Enough for you to make a ‘usable’ graven image. A reliable idol…
I have spent the first 30 years of my life under communist rule. Under a communist yoke, actually.
I have witnessed Trump being elected President of the United States. Thrown out by popular vote. Then I watched Mike Pence being spirited away by the Secret Service. Some of those convinced by Trump’s Big Lie were chasing the Vice President inside the Capitol in an attempt to…
The US Supreme Court reversed Roe vs Wade.
Prigozhin, also known as Putin’s chef – and lately the mastermind behind PMC Wagner – had become so pissed that organized a field trip. Then turned his troops around and went to Belarus.
What’s going on here?!?
The world has become a battle-field. A political battle-field where ‘right’ and ‘left’ fight for control.
Both sides oblivious to the fact that politics is, or more exactly ‘should be’, about solving people’s problems.
Given my experience – half a life spent under communist yoke – people expect me to root for the right side of the political spectrum. Which I do. But I’m also fully aware that the left would have had no chance, absolutely no chance at all, if those on the right had been just a tad more considerate.
And here’s the catch. There’s no such thing as a good left but there are a good right and a bad right.
The bad thing about the left – about the entire left – is the fact they ‘know better’. All of them. The left is choke full of solutions. Whenever somebody says ‘I noticed there’s a problem with… What are your thoughts about this subject?’ somebody from the left will surely grab the opportunity: ‘we’ve already told you that this and that had to be done a long time ago in order to solve this thing before it even happened’! The bad thing about the right, the militant portion of the modern right, is that they’ve become just like their sworn enemies. They’ve somehow convinced themselves that ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ and that’s what they did. They joined the left in battle. Using the very tools they have borrowed from the left and adopting the very same attitude.
The bad kind of right are also convinced that ‘they know better’. That you have to be a moron in order to be a ‘liberal’. Or, at least, a ‘greenhorn’. “If You Are Not a Liberal When You Are Young, You Have No Heart, and If You Are Not a Conservative When Old, You Have No Brain”.
In fact, it’s exactly this infatuation with their own ‘brains’ which is the worst thing about the left. And about the bad right. I see no difference between Marx’s “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” and Trump’s ‘truthful hyperbole’.
You see, Trump isn’t a self made man, as he pretends to be. He would have never become what he is today if Tony Schwartz, a liberal, hadn’t ghostwritten the Art of the Deal.
Furthermore, Trump would have never become the 45th President of the United States of America without the support of the ‘activist republicans’. The ones convinced that Roe vs Wade must be reversed. At all costs. The ones convinced, just like the ‘liberals’ are, that they ‘know better’.
And, by the way, this is a fake. Something that Orwell would have agreed upon but was never actually written by him.
nicichiarasa 