WATCH – Putin: Obama and Hollande are not Syrian citizens, can’t decide Syria’s future

I would only differ with Putting in his assessment of the Nazi’s, using them as exemplars of the most evil in comparing them to ISIS, when in reality, the jewish-led Bolsheviks were far worse. But barring that, I WAS IN TOTAL SYMPATHY WITH HIS MOSTLY TRUTHFUL ANSWERS

Peter’s comment makes an important point that deserves support, and deserves careful and extended consideration.
Careful and extended consideration takes time and effort – which I cannot supply at this moment. I do intend to do so later.
If Peter himself or other readers wants to do so in the meantime, please do so. That would be fine.

Here is my careful and extended consideration of Peter’s comment #1.
The Soviet Union suffered terrible losses during WWII, and were subjected to vicious propaganda against the Germans. My understanding is that the tens of millions of Russians who died during that horrid war are regarded as sacred martyrs who died defending their motherland.
I doubt that any Russian leader – including Putin – would dare challenge that perception. And one has to concede that all those deaths were a terrible national sacrifice, and people have a right to be solemn about that.
The extent to which Russians now realize the extent of harm caused to their country by Bolshevik rule, I am not in a position to guess.
It is sobering to ponder on the reality that the people of Western nations have been brainwashed by anti-Nazi propaganda to a comparable degree to the Russian people.
So what?
I am not writing out of grief for all the deaths and suffering caused by that horrid war.
I’m writing out of grief for the loss of important words and the immensely valuable concepts that those words represent. The words have been so profoundly perverted that their meanings have been reversed from their originally intended meanings. Orwell’s “Newspeak” referred to just this problem.
I’ll list them, and then go through them, one by one: socialism, communism, democracy, republic, and anarchy.
1. Socialism. Every man and his dog knows that socialism has been tried and found not to work.
Really? The prime examples are the Soviet Union and China. Why didn’t they work? Well, because of centralized power in the hands of a privileged minority. Huh? That’s NOT socialism, that’s OLIGARCHY! Right? Centralized power in the hands of a privileged minority. Think about it!
But one government that called itself “socialist” did work well, and it is arguable that it worked better to serve the common good of its ordinary people than any government before or since. It was only allowed to operate for six years before a war planned to destroy it officially began. Planning for that war had been in train for all of the six years of its peacetime government. Consider this quote of Jewish writer Emil Ludwig Cohn: “Hitler will have no war (does not want war), but we will force it on him, not this year, but soon.” – translated from the French original in Les Annales, June, 1934 (also quoted in his book “The New Holy Alliance”).
The one successful socialist government was the “Nazi” Party of Germany – actually the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
Many may object that this government was actually a dictatorship under Adolf Hitler – and there’s some truth to that. He was revered as the Fuehrer. And he plainly demanded strict discipline from all of his people. On the other hand, he delegated responsibilities widely, so that the bone-headed rigidity of centralized Bolshevik government was avoided. And the strict discipline he insisted on was that all should serve the common good to the very best of their ability. It is true the NSDAP abolished the trade unions which had been dominated by Bolsheviks, and had served workers extremely poorly. In all aspects, the lives of workers and their families improved to levels never before experienced. The quality of life for ordinary German people had been horrible under the Weimar government. Unemployment over thirty percent, widespread severe poverty, hopelessness reflected by a very high suicide rate, and so on. Hitler’s NSDAP government put people to productive work, and insisted they be paid enough to meet their family responsibilities. Ordinary people’s lives improved greatly and rapidly. Companies were working to capacity repairing and developing the national infrastructure and meeting the people’s needs. All of this, and more, is described objectively and clearly in Mark Weber’s concise article “How Hitler Tackled Unemployment And Revived Germany’s Economy” which can be downloaded from http://www.ihr.org/other/economyhitler2011.html.
So please, please reconsider your misunderstanding of what socialism should be. Society matters because the well being of its people matters. Any government which serves the common good of its people should qualify as a socialist government. The question that needs to concern ordinary people is how can we serve the common good democratically. Of course, “democracy” is one of our murdered words, so we’ll consider that aspect when we get around to “democracy”. If the well-being of the society you live in is important to you, then the word “socialism” needs to be reclaimed and honestly defined.
2. Communism. The same logic applies as for socialism. The idea of community matters just like the idea of society matters – both imply people working together to serve the common good. Such ideas are opposed to people who strive for power. Think of the associations of the idea of power – strength, might-is-right. Aristotle realized that great wealth and the power that goes with it, engenders an insatiable desire for ever greater power. Lord Acton expressed the same idea in different words: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Our powerful masters have brainwashed us to believe that serving the common good would infringe upon their freedom. Therefore the idea of “communism”, like that of “socialism”, now means “oligarchy”. If the well-being of the community you live in is important to you, then the word “communism” needs to be reclaimed and honestly defined.
3. Democracy. The word derives from two Greek words: “demos” = “common people”, and “kratos” = “rule, strength”. So in a democracy the common people should rule their society, and the strength of their society should be wielded by them. The reality is the opposite of that. The only say common people have in democracies is casting a vote every so many years for who should represent them in a parliament. Most people end up represented by someone they did NOT vote for. The actual government is made up of a collection of elected representatives who agree to support each other in votes within the parliament. What this boils down to is centralized power in the hands of a privileged minority. Huh? That’s NOT democracy, that’s OLIGARCHY! Right? Centralized power in the hands of a privileged minority. Think about it!
4. Republic. The word derives from two Latin words: “res” = “affair, matter, thing”, and “publica” = “public” or “people”. Bloody hell, how to join those two concepts into a sensible definition? The core idea seems to be that a society claiming to be a republic would need to be a public thing. Let’s look at some societies claiming to be republics – USA, France, Germany, Russia, China. All of those societies are governed by centralized power in the hands of a privileged minority. Huh? Those societies are all OLIGARCHIES! Right? Centralized power in the hands of a privileged minority. Think about it!
5. Anarchy. The word derives from two Greek words: “an-” = “without”, and “arkhos” = “leader”. So a society claiming to be an anarchy would govern itself without a leader or ruler.
The very idea of any society claiming to be an anarchy is ridiculous, so extremely perverted has the meaning of that word become. The mainstream media repeatedly screens video reports of gangs of masked thugs dressed in black behaving violently and destructively. And talking heads on the mainstream media routinely use the word “anarchy” to describe situations of chaotic violence. Boy oh boy, do our rulers fear and hate the idea of “anarchy”.
So where does all that leave the mass of us poor suckers – common or ordinary people?
Do you want to be ruled by centralized power in the hands of a privileged minority?
Neither do I.
Do you want common or ordinary people to have a say in all aspects of the government of their society – including, and especially, military action?
My answer to that is yes. What’s yours?
And here’s a third question. Is government not based on power possible? Is government based on accountable responsibility instead of power possible?
My answer to that is: I hope so, and I think so. What do you think?
One more question: what do we ordinary people need to do in order to prepare ourselves for trying out government based on accountable responsibility instead of power?