Russia could swap Navalny for Assange

Assuming that the persecuted Australian publisher Julian Assange is taken into US custody following the UK's probable failure to provide any kind of justice for him, Russia should offer Alexei Navalny in a prisoner swap.

This in no way is intended to lend credence to the idea that either man is an international spy, as figures from both the Russian and American governments have claimed, but to acknowledge that each man is the other's parallel. Who is the good, the bad, and perhaps the ugly would depend on which of the two nations should refuse such a swap.

Navalny the politician, Assange the publisher

It should be quite telling that Russia's most famous dissident is a partisan politician, whereas the West's most famous dissident is a nonpartisan publisher. Navalny is sometimes falsely presented as a whistle-blower, yet what he does is make partisan propaganda films boosted by foreign media with an interest in regime-change in Russia. Assange, in contrast, never presented any message or agenda, and simply published raw data that exposed government officials in the act. Assange is everything Navalny pretends to be.

Navalny really seems to be the kind of traitor the US government accuses Assange of being. He roots for NATO forces amassing on Russia's frontier, and supports Western sanctions against his own country's defence and industrial sectors. From this, Russians can know Navalny is a Guaido.

It should be suspected that, were a hypothetical swap offered, Russia would almost certainly want to get rid of Navalny but the Americans would never let go of Assange. This should tell us something.

The test of the miserable little worm

Assange was instrumental in exposing the truth about America being a regime of murderers in raw, unedited video, and is effective at continuing to expose America's regime no matter where he is, whereas Navalny was always just America's favourite candidate to rule Russia. As such, a Julian Assange in Moscow would likely be very useful to the Russians, but an Alexei Navalny in Washington is probably useless to the Americans.

Assange is an undisputed icon of truth and selfless, virtuous journalism, invaluable to all the world's nations. Navalny is the dishonourable propagandist whose goal is power, not revealing facts to the public. He is, to quote a certain former UK Member of Parliament, a miserable little worm.

The profound inferiority of the West's championed dissident, this failed politician, in contrast to a journalist who exposed their regimes, would be undisputed in the event of inevitable US refusal to take the rotten Navanly in exchange for Assange.

If Assange dies, might Navalny then die?

It is likely that an entirely innocent and humble Julian Assange will die in the cruel custody of the American despots who hide behind the democratic pantomime, and who could not tolerate the humiliation at the exposure of their regime's crimes. In such an event, the Russians could similarly eliminate Navalny in turn, and this would be no loss as far as the world or even the United States is concerned.

A swap offer would give the Americans a difficult choice: either expose the worm they support in Russia, by showing their refusal to take him, or send Assange to Russia and risk a resurgent WikiLeaks. A successful swap would be a coup for Russia's reputation, and a failed swap would be equally incriminating for the US and make the US hesitant to harm Assange.

The Americans have a disgusting regime, whose leaders turned as red as gammon when their war crimes were exposed, and the world's focus should stay on them rather than Russia.

Could Britain exit NATO?

As with the exit from the European Union, could Britain exit other major international organisations, in particular NATO?

Exiting NATO is considered unacceptable within British politics, and even the ex-leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn seems to have been pressured to abandon that stance before he had any chance at becoming Prime Minister, which ultimately failed anyway. Most Brits support the Alliance.

The exit process

Discussion about a country leaving NATO has mostly focused on Turkey lately, due to its policy clashes with multiple member states including Greece, France and even the US. It is noted that while the organisation has everything in place for letting countries in, there is no process for expulsion.

The process for exiting NATO voluntarily by a member state seems simple enough. It requires diplomatic correspondence with the United States, followed by a one year transition period. If the UK wanted to leave, it is an easy process.

It should be noted that the organisation's founding document (Article XIII) treats the Alliance as temporary, suggesting a 20-year duration, placing no importance in maintaining it. The Alliance, however, is now maintained by a fandom of unilateralists who see it as a marvellous superhero organisation battling against evil, evidently disappointed with the United Nations, the constraints of international law, or any grasp of reality.

The Leave Movement

The virtues of NATO for security were cited by Leave campaigners during the campaign for Brexit, as a reason the EU wasn't needed for keeping the country safe. Considering this, they aren't likely to take on the cause of exiting NATO now that they are done with the EU. In fact, Leave campaigners claimed they were helping NATO by undermining the EU, seen as a rival institution in European defence.

The Eurosceptic movement was originally not taken very seriously by opponents in the UK, but support grew, and it drew very prominent politicians who were able to attract even more interest in it. Those who want to exit NATO are not taken seriously now, but someone similar to Nigel Farage might hypothetically be able to pull it off. We know of Farage's alignment with Donald Trump, who is a sceptic of NATO, but Farage himself is a certainly a NATO fan.

However, the question remains: why exit NATO? There were numerous complaints about the EU negatively affecting people in Britain, that could be spun into a narrative of the country being subverted and undermined by a foreign yoke. This helped to stimulate Brexit. However, there is no such tale be told about NATO. We maintain a nuclear arsenal as a country and are a major military player and ally of the US. Simply exiting NATO would not affect those stances or make us less of a target for a hypothetical aggressor, and in fact may make us more vulnerable, because NATO membership could be helping to deter some forms of attack.

No point

The main thing to consider about another Brexit, this time from NATO, is that there is no point. There are significant perks of membership, no consequences or expulsion process for failing to meet one's commitments, and less spending on defence is necessary when compared to being an independent military power.

A country should remain within NATO even if it regards the alliance with scorn and has no intentions of coming to anyone's aid. Everything is on offer that could encourage you to stay, even if you don't want to.

The core of NATO

In the case of Britain, no political conversation needs to be had about NATO. The very nucleus of NATO is the coalition, or Special Relationship, of our country with America. That's really how NATO started.

One could withdraw from NATO as a snub to Atlanticists and pro-American warmongers within British politics, but why? They would not be going anywhere. Their lifelong cradling and nursing of Americans and love of their culture would not be forgotten by these idolaters, if they simply walk out of the NATO door. If anything, we would see even more aggressive stances taken in support of American foreign policy, and without a formal framework to create some restraint, by those who worship the Americans.

The only way to break it

The British-American alliance exists independently of NATO and is reinforced by extensive cooperation between both countries' armed forces. In addition, the cultural and linguistic connection is essential to the Special Relationship. The foreign policy thought and practice of the two countries are entirely intertwined and inseparable, with British diplomats and jurists more devoted to justifying American actions than their own.

To break these things would be a multigenerational process, but it could be inevitable. An increasing and potentially politically decisive Muslim minority in Britain is likely to favour disengagement from aggressive American foreign policy, considering the catastrophe it brought their fellow Muslims.

Absent the long way described above, there are only two ways the British-American coalition could be eliminated quickly: (1) a major historic dispute or incident making the British realise the Americans are traitorous, offensive and unworthy as allies and resulting in numerous condemnations being uttered by British politicians, and (2) the final depreciation and end of the British Armed Forces (possibly aided by Scottish independence or further breakup of the UK) at which point the Americans themselves no longer call on us to aid them or find us to be worthy allies.

How to be an anti-NATO Brit

NATO is inessential and possibly results in a confused course, steering British military power away from the country's national interests and into unnecessary conflicts started by Americans. It diminishes Britain's interest in the welfare of the Commonwealth of Nations, where we have actual moral debts, cultural ties, and civilisational commitments. There are valid reasons to abandon the Atlanticist obsession.

As valid as the above criticism of NATO may be, it is never a good idea to just swim against the tide of popular opinion, no matter how dull or foolish such opinion may seem. One must instead only give lacklustre support to NATO, and show a lack of enthusiasm towards it.

The best role one can take as an opponent of what NATO represents in the UK, whether simply trying to convince people or seeking political office, would be to mention NATO as a good and stable thing when talking of foreign policy. Mentioning continued NATO commitments is an effective way of throwing a bone to the Atlanticists without actually doing anything.

Membership of NATO can be cited when trying to cut defence spending, as well, since we can point to collective defence and the many buffer states between us and any adversary. One might consider asking the Americans to reform NATO. We could request to reduce the 2% of GDP required to go to defence, asking instead to spend 1% due our lack of proximity to an adversary, and see how the US deals with that. Or we could just reduce spending anyway, since the organisation has no expulsion process or sanctions mechanism to punish the UK with. The UK has no adjacent adversary and is surrounded by allies or neutral parties, making internal policing far more important than force projection abroad.

Israel's obsession with Britain

Whether it is actress Emma Watson or anybody in the UK's Labour Party, there isn't a British person Israeli officials or ex-officials won't step forward to publicly attack if they sympathise with with Palestinian Arabs.

What does Britain have to do with Israel?

Prior to the creation of Israel, that part of the world was known as the British Mandate for Palestine and, later, Mandatory Palestine. The British were present in the first place to secure a Jewish homeland, as per the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and this promise was fulfilled when the State of Israel came into existence in 1948. However, things did not go as intended.

Britain never intended to create a state where human rights of Arabs would be undermined, or provide justifications for mass displacement and ethnic cleansing of Arabs. It did not support violating the rights of Muslims to worship as they have always done in their holy sites. In 2017, Britain acknowledged that the Balfour Declaration should have protected Palestinian Arabs' rights.

Britain made a mess of things in the territories of its former empire, drawing borders incorrectly. Poor understanding of the people of the controlled regions precipitated a number of current conflicts. Dubious conflict-prone states such as modern India and Iraq were created arbitrarily, often at the stroke of a pen, with no interest in how history or local culture might cause tension. Britain has not atoned for the situation.

Israel's doubts about its own legitimacy

Knowing their country was created by the British, Israelis actually seem to cower at our every utterance. Perhaps their terror is that the British will apologise for creating that state, somewhat undermining the legal basis for its existence.

The best advice to the Israelis is that they should leave Britain alone and stop being so interested in our opinions. If they continue to aggressively lobby for the British to support Israel, in their hopes to avoid the nightmare of British disavowal, Israel is most likely further irritating many British people and drawing their disfavour.

Anti-Israel (but not necessarily anti-Semitic) views are commonplace in the UK, and a large cause of that could be the strained and aggressive attempts of the Israelis and their sympathisers to influence our point of view. The strong movement within the Labour Party that emerged under Jeremy Corbyn was partly due to his principled support for the international cause of Palestinian rights in the face of significant attempts by morally dubious Israel-supporters and Blairites to hinder him.

Israel's unwarranted concern

The next time British people, even top British figures, say something critical of Israel, Israel's most dignified reaction would be no reaction. However, with the kind of insecurity they have about the legitimacy of their state, it is more likely that they will continue whining more than any other country in the world would, triggering even more attention and criticism in the future.

When the Israelis express so much concern about international attitudes, and especially attitudes in Britain, it makes their country look new, floundering and half-legitimate. Maybe that's how it still is. Maybe they are trying to tell us that they don't think their country's existence is secure, and that mere cold words from Britain might be enough to create chaos.

Is war a smokescreen for Ukraine's democratic failure?

It would be a "strategic mistake", as UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss put it, for Russia to attempt to conquer Ukraine entirely.

However, expectations about Russia seizing all of Ukraine and depriving the country of independence seem to be only idle speculation based on the mere presence of many Russian troops near Ukraine. Britain and America have not seen any plans about a Russian attack.

For all we know, Russia intends to maintain such troops permanently for as long as there is still a potentially dangerous conflict in the adjacent Donbass region in Ukraine. The Russian troop presence near Ukraine is no more evidence of a Russian invasion now than in spring last year, when we received the same warnings. We have been through this before.

Preserving Ukrainian democracy

What seems new, though, is the scandalous political situation in Ukraine, in part created by Western blunders. US foreign policy figures such as Professor Michael McFaul assert that Ukrainian democracy is Russia's biggest fear. This seems unlikely, when considering the oligarch-ridden and corrupt state of Ukrainian politics.

Ukraine could even be plunging into an undemocratic abyss as President Volodymyr Zelensky seeks to arrest political opponents and the US helps demonise them. Two top opponents Zelensky has sought to imprison are Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine's president following the ouster of the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych, and Viktor Medvedchuk, who is considered the pro-Russian favourite in the Ukrainian opposition at present. Between them, these two figures and their parties represent many of the opposition seats in Ukraine's parliament. If the US cared about democracy in Ukraine, it would ask Zelensky to cut them some slack as the EU did.

Popular opposition media have faced total bans as well, on the same grounds of alleged treasonous activity. However, any opposition activity or different foreign policy views could be construed as treasonous to the incumbent government, making democracy nearly impossible. Rather than noticing this worrying trend, the United States encourages it.

Falsely labelling Ukrainian politicians as Russian agents

Medvedchuk's preference for good relations with Russia in no way invalidates his right to compete for democratic votes in Ukraine. Don't expect the Americans to see it that way, though. Don't expect them to think external American interference in the Ukrainian parliament is any obstacle to democracy, either. 

Both the US and the UK seem to have started announcing Ukrainian opposition figures are Russian agents, and it is clearly false information, endangering their ability to work and even threatening their lives. This suggests the Western countries in question are insincere about bringing democracy to Ukraine and are only looking for expansion of Western power and alliances.

Consider also that any allegations about Russia illegitimately using politics to interfere in Ukraine behind the scenes are obviously hypocritical. To unearth these interferences would require the Americans or British themselves snooping around, interfering in Ukrainian democracy and picking favourites. Is our interference somehow inherently more democratic than others, even when not based on any vote or pertaining to any attempt to assess the democratic will?

Closer to the West doesn't necessarily mean democracy

Arrests of opposition, bans on media and labelling of opposition figures as Russian assets may bolster the Western hold over the Ukrainian government and bring it closer to the NATO orbit, but we should not confuse this with advancing democracy. It literally means denigrating the country's opposition and backing a regime that wants to maintain power.

We may be looking at an example of Western countries acting with no principles and simply waving around the word "democracy". The word is used as if it doesn't point to political practice. Instead, it is presented as an elusive justification for other practices, including tyranny.

The lost wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which involved the US and UK implanting deeply unpopular regimes in the name of "democracy", without realising these regimes had no legitimacy, should be a warning about what could happen in Ukraine if the current policy is maintained.

Does Putin incite the West to do internet censorship?

Russian president Vladimir Putin has long held the internet to be CIA, and has not made a secret of this belief. He doesn't use social media, which gives some insight into his attitude towards it.

In many ways, Putin is a man of the Cold War, almost perfectly built to handle Russia's affairs in what is considered a new cold war. He thinks in terms of missile numbers, move and countermove.

And there is some truth to the internet being a weapon of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When one looks at its origins, most of the work really was done by a US government agency. Those who work at US agencies often step between other bodies, including the CIA. That doesn't mean it couldn't backfire on the US, however, becoming yet another case of what the CIA calls blowback.

It is clear to Putin and his cohorts that a few things went wrong in the last global struggle against the United States, and they will be determined not to repeat their mistakes. During the first Cold War, the then-Soviet Union, to which the Russian Federation is the modern-day successor, had what is considered to be a stagnant society and economy.

Censorship as the loser's strategy

Censorship was arguably a factor in the failure of the Soviet system. People are driven to find the awful truth about things, or at least see the countervailing point of view. When you restrict access to alternative views, even successfully, the effort almost always backfires.

At present, the aforementioned fault seems to be more apparent in the Western countries than Russia. The least popular variety of boring establishment "journalists", are the loudest in calling for suppressing competing information and curtailing freedom of expression on the very internet the West created and which Putin loathes. An example of this is their backlash against Substack.

Western states and their most obvious and vapid shills hate current Russian media networks such as the award-winning "Putin's propaganda channel" RT and Sputnik with a passion, making exaggerated claims about their apparent influence over Western audiences. In the original Cold War, the Russians didn't even possess such media with which to tempt anybody in the West.

For many unthinking people, there is likely a guilty allure to subversive foreign media, which explains both the alleged fascination of Russians with Western entertainment during the original Cold War and the current popularity of something like RT in Western countries. Western companies and authorities labelling RT as dangerous, foreign, and state-sponsored does nothing to reduce people's fascination with it and may only increase it.

We could see an escalation of attempts to stamp out Russian-backed media, going further than simply placing labels on it and moving more and more towards prosecuting journalists and banning points of view entirely. The West can be expected to be more heavy-handed than Russia, because it is backed up by an arrogant moral certitude implicit even in all news reporting on foreign policy, whereas the Russians merely speak of their national security.

A West no longer for freedom?

The sad reality is that in this Cold War, the establishment in the West is treading a boring path of ideological orthodoxy and restriction, and the foreign adversary is not. This is not just an immaterial difference of ideals in a contest of might, either. The attitude of automatically rejecting "enemy" points of view and denying people the right to even see them is potentially a threat to democratic models, dulling the intellect and pacifying political opposition.

Examples of Western ideological inflexibility are the commitment to imposing frameworks of LGBT rights, minority rights, and the freedom to offend religious sensibilities, even when such things divide their own alliances and cause discomfort especially among culturally diverse states. The West presents such things as universal and set to be accepted everywhere, which is far from certain even in Europe.

Western leaders want Russians to be portrayed as the ones afraid of information, afraid of human expression and liberty, as in the previous Cold War. However, with Western press arbitrarily branding all kinds of media stories as attacks or disinformation that need to be suppressed for the sake of democracy (like the blocked and then unblocked New York Post story in the US 2020 election), it is clear that Western states are at least as intolerant places for online dissent as Russia. The minutiae of how information and people are disappeared in the West and Russia may be different, but that is no basis to argue that the West is morally superior or better justified to make anything disappear.

If Western politicians and journalists are right in their claims about the threat of Russian disinformation and social media accounts, it means Russia has effectively turned what Putin considers to be a CIA weapon - the internet - into a tool against the West. It means the US, particularly the CIA, is profoundly confused about its role in the world, having believed it stood for freedom and encouraged technologies to facilitate just that, only to realise this was a mistake and will threaten American statehood too.

In branding the internet as a tool of foreign subversion of their political systems, Putin's enemies in the West are making his own case for him. Impose greater control and restrictions on what information is allowed online? Exactly what he wanted from the beginning. Only allow information that fits with one's national security interests? The Kremlin will be the first to agree with that sentiment.

The internet might be broken up

If the West wants to subvert adversarial influence and narratives on the internet, it will help Balkanise the internet. If Putin's comments about the internet being CIA reflect his views, then he is looking for this anyway. As such, those who continuously serve up stories and articulate concerns about Russian influence are doing Putin's work to destroy the CIA's weapon. It could be argued, of course, that this weapon should be subverted or destroyed, but that is another conversation.

The spread of deep suspicion about all media and the motives of those who produce it, rather than the content itself, may be the real foreign trick, and a clever one. If foreign interference or sympathising with the enemy is perceived in even a minor act of dissent, or any vocal form of opposition, nobody will be willing to correct or reform anything, which will eventually have repercussions for government and economic performance.

Trump's Truth Social app may fail, but affect election

Truth Social, the social media service being pursued by Donald Trump, is likely to meet with similar problems to other attempts to create conservative-friendly social media services.

What happens without moderation is horrific

I joined alternate social media site Gab for a couple of weeks, to try it out, before promptly closing my account after getting a thorough look at what kind of repulsive people use the site. The best analogy is that if Twitter is a park, Gab is a lunatic asylum where the inmates are able to leave their cells and do whatever they want. Judging by the small and ideologically restrictive user base, it is obvious that users have their own way of silencing people and keeping them off the site, in a way that is possibly worse and certainly more arbitrary than any algorithm on Twitter.

A site that allows the full range of human behaviours, including the very worst, might seem to encourage liberty. But when bullies have free reign, how much liberty can there be? It is arguable that when the next person is free to do whatever they want, including degrade you, you have less freedom. The low numbers of people signed up to Gab, despite being aware of it, speak volumes about its failed appeal as a social network and the fact the user experience is more coercive than on Twitter.

It has been reported that even doxing is allowed on Gab. Almost everyone on the site has some fringe far-right view, and the user base is so small that it is more like a membership database for the few deranged cultists and violent psychopaths in society rather than a social network.

Social media isn't meant for extremism

Gab isn't a social network in the proper sense. It doesn't connect people, as is the purpose of a social network. Accounts promoting bizarre ideologies, while receiving no engagement and responding to nothing, are common. It is like all the bad accounts and spam accounts on Twitter got removed and put somewhere where they can carry on talking in a cell with no audience.

We have to remember that social networks were really just created so people can carry on interacting in a virtual space. They aren't propaganda machines. Any website created to mimic Twitter but mobilise political armies is doomed to failure, since that was never the appeal or purpose of Twitter in the first place.

Despite its seemingly libertarian credentials, most of the user profiles I saw on Gab were neo-Nazis, and one was even calling for the restoration of slavery in America. So, in other words, those who most enjoy the supposed freedom offered by Gab are users who want to literally take other people's freedom away, and they are looking for a space where they can advocate such things?

Conservatives often doomed to get themselves silenced

This is a common problem with some conservatives in America. They seem to be always the first to make references to freedom of speech when theirs is curtailed in any way, and the first to call for someone else's to be taken off them if they don't like what they heard. Exactly as with many liberals, it doesn't take much to convince conservatives to express alarm at mere words and call for the words to be stopped.

Finally, let us turn to the topic at hand - Trump's social media app, called Truth Social. The only feature of this app, that will make people use it, will be Trump. The existence of a Trump account there will cause some significant influencers, journalists, et cetera, and their followers across the world, to sign up to it. There is potential there for some diversity of thought, certainly a lot more than Gab. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

However, if there is insufficient moderation of the content, the site will become overwhelmingly filled again with neo-Nazis and others posting extremist content and personal threats. If there is sufficient moderation, many conservatives will cry foul and not only leave the platform but could denounce Donald Trump in the process. As such, there is pressure to moderate it properly, and not moderate it properly, at the same time.

Why would Trump bother, if it is doomed?

What is certain is that the launch of the Truth Social app will probably have a significant effect and see a large spike in use if and when Donald Trump runs for president once again. Given that it may only be growing for a short time during such a campaign, and do well throughout it, its future decline will be unknown to us and its explosive success at the time will assist with Trump's chances of becoming president again.

It can be estimated that Truth Social will probably be banned from most app stores, including Apple's app store. It will be too controversial for business. However, even still, the "censorship" scandal associated with this and the fact people will still be able to make their way to the website will still have a positive effect on a hypothetical Trump campaign's performance.

To sum up, Truth Social will probably be a failure, especially if it is solely for political benefit and not as an actual social network with unique selling points and adequate moderation. If it is going to actually try to compete with Twitter and accommodate hard line conservatives kicked from Twitter, it will fail, but it could still have a positive effect on a hypothetical future Trump campaign. Whether that boosting effect on Trump's attempt to get re-elected will be decisive enough to return him to the White House remains to be seen.

Can the US military be purged of "patriots"?

Warnings about disproportionate numbers of conservatives and Trump voters manning the US military have resulted in calls for a kind of purge by the Democrat-run administration. How will the state replace these most stalwart believers in the cause of American supremacy?

A shift of the American state and establishment to a liberal persuasion in recent years is the perception of American conservatives. It goes beyond simply the Democrats winning the 2020 election. The perception of that "deep state" hostile to conservative impulses was even more prominent while Trump was in office, as everyone with governing experience even on his own team and in the Republican Party rejected his politics.

"Deep state" is a misnomer by Trump's supporters, of course. Trump was checked not by the deep state, but by the state, and in broad daylight. He is unknowledgeable about governing, but this fact in itself is more a failure of democracy in America. A complete outsider can be elected, yet faced with utter disdain from the regime he leads, which is often a guarantee of ineffective government.

National security state targets its own fans as enemies

The legions of the religious right, who became Trump's base, were the "divisions", relied upon to win elections by those political forces who believed in a strong and aggressive America - the neoconservatives. Now, they have parted ways with the government institutions, so much so that most Republicans could be considered terrorists and enemies of the state by the Democrat administration.

Today, conservative activists are the designated main enemies of America, perpetrators of some trifle in 2020 that is stupidly declared by the administration to be a new Pearl Harbor or 9/11 attack. Things have changed significantly from the past configuration when the state relied on conservatives to support its crusades against enemies foreign and domestic, as they are now designated enemies themselves.

As an example of how things have changed, consider that it would have previously been unheard of for the right-wing "America first" crowd to sympathise with thorns in the state's side like Julian Assange. Now, they in fact support Assange, despite the fact that his one biggest service to the world was exposing crimes of US troops in a war launched by conservative Republicans.

The former zealots of American "peace through strength", whose votes kept that agenda in power, will be cast as enemies of the state for as long as Trump or their preferred Trumpian candidate is out of power. While this resentment may be subdued in the short-term by new Republican electoral victories, such as in the midterms, no such victory could make any difference to the growing gap between a conservative movement out of touch with governing and a governing elite out of touch with conservative masses.

Purging pro-military attitudes from the military

Defenders of the US military are, technically, extremists. They are prone to like firearms. As per America's very founding, these militants believe in using violence to achieve political goals. Every one of them could be banned from social media for violating the terms and conditions there, as could every member of every military branch in the world if they merely posted anything consistent with what they are trained to think and do.

The American military is still overfilled with conservatives, making the administration and its ideologues twitchy about disloyalty. However, to try to purge them would be like trying to purge the police of pro-police activists, or ensuring that more of the police's resources go towards arresting those who shout pro-police slogans.

The reason America's military is filled with conservatives is because it is a conservative institution. The cause of American military power has always been owned by conservative Republicans. Liberals and "nice" people who follow community guidelines to the letter are not prone to join organisations that are all about killing people and giving justifications for it. That entire domain of human interaction is, in America, something owned by conservatives and a key reason why they are loathed by their opponents in the first place.

How knighting Tony Blair undermines the state

While many object to knighting Tony Blair on moral grounds, citing his role in the Iraq War and the tragedy he therefore inflicted on their lives, rewarding Blair is a bad call even from a realist perspective.

It is harmful to the British state's authority and credibility that it failed to put Blair on trial. It is potentially disastrous that the Queen is perceived to endorse him by knighting him.

Sooner or later, a state that ignored and handwaved away the people's feelings can face a lot of distrust, and this is a mistake of governance more than a failure of morals. Even the most corrupt and vile person in the highest places of the state, if they had sense, would exorcise Blair and sacrifice him to regain the trust of the many millions of citizens who remember how he lied to justify the Iraq War.

With an award, Blair undermines the country's image at home and abroad and contributes to the perception of state deception and cynicism. Here is a person who lied the country into a war and suppressed information that disputed the legality of his actions.

Remembering the lies

Tony Blair and his defenders pass the events of the Iraq War off as mistakes by a sincere man, but this is refuted by those who knew Blair was lying at the time and took significant action of their own to protest his disinformation. These included the largest street protest in British history and one cabinet resignation.

Blair's participation in a crime is better documented than the actions of other criminals who are now behind bars. There will be a perception that his role within the state makes him immune from justice and even still eligible for awards, and that is just why so many people distrust the state itself.

This is a man who knowingly imperilled British troops and Iraqi civilians and unleashed a disaster in the Middle East, for reasons that were insufficient and he knew they were. He is responsible equally for the failed war effort in Afghanistan and for a lot of terrorism in the world, much of it motivated by a sense of injustice because this one person's wrongful actions were unpunished. A lot of people would still be alive today and the world would be a much better place, were it not for him. The place of Britain in the world would be better. Life would be easier for everyone in the British government itself, from lowest worker to the highest holder of political office, who would no longer be faced with citizens who obstinately disbelieve everything they say.

If punished appropriately, Blair would do a huge service to the country and empower the state's authority. The action would send a message to the world that the country in fact stands for a set of rules, and that not even those who reached the top of the state are immune from justice. That commitment to always follow the law, no matter where it leads, is what Britain is meant to represent.

Not so noble

The revealing of crooks and paedophiles such as Jimmy Savile and Prince Andrew, in high and esteemed places in British life, is a perception damaging to the state, and the damage must be repaired. The names of these televised deceivers, Savile and Blair, belong on the same page, no matter how liked they once were by many.

The population is becoming suspicious that something is wrong with those who supposedly represent our best. Whatever it is, it is disproportionately found among them in comparison with the normal population.

We don't hear that our colleagues are paedophiles and crooks, but we hear a great deal about this problem arising among the supposedly noble and honourable sirs who possess esteemed titles. Maybe it is true that power attracts the psychopathic.

Why can't we just let him go?

Finally, if Britain doesn't tidy up the problem of apparently self-serving incestuous power that allows the state figures to tell lies without punishment, political attitudes among the public will include rejecting everything the state says as a lie even when it is true. With many rejecting government pleas to vaccinate, and the earlier crazy attacks on 5G infrastructure and workers, we may already be nearing that stage of absolute distrust in all institutions and authority.

One unpunished (even rewarded!) lying politician is the biggest reason many will cite for their distrust. The state risks losing credibility with millions of people because of Blair, or properly rejecting this goblin.

My Dissident Voice article continuing this topic: The State’s Celebration of Lies and Punishment of Truth | Dissident Voice

Could creating a perfect society lead to doom?

If one subscribes to the notion of social progress, the sheer amount of protest and alarm emanating from the idea's own adherents today is absurd. Surely, things should have improved by now? Surely, the ills of society are at least milder than in the past?

Instead, we seem to have entered an era of exaggerated grievances. We look for stupid things to complain about, rally in protest against irrelevant half-injustices that aren't comparable with the horrendous atrocities of the past, and declare war on other people and their point of view rather than actual policies of the state.

In Westernised society, where being overweight is literally more of a problem than hunger, anything that goes even slightly awry or encumbers people's personal wishes will increasingly be subject to comparisons with major civil rights breaches and even mass murder in the past. It is why the US vice president compared the kerfuffle of January 6 2020 with past wars and mass-casualty attacks on the United States, specifically the 9/11 attacks and Pearl Harbor. It is why vaccine mandates and mask mandates are compared with the Holocaust by radical conservatives. The complete lack of resemblance between the events being compared is so staggering that it seems like a joke.

Oppression in Western societies today

For the most part, there is no real oppression in Western societies anymore, and the belief in it is just whipped up through exaggeration for one political cause or another. Nobody is being mistreated or abused on any scale of note, and the complaints are downright pathetic compared to the plight of previous generations.

We see this behaviour on both the right and the left, showing that it is common to the whole society. People on the right assert that Christians and whites are persecuted in the US, overreacting to attempts to merely maintain a secular constitution and allow equal representation. People on the left see racist utterances and behaviour as tantamount to fascism and regard themselves as resistance fighters.

Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature makes the case that things have universally improved compared to the past, in terms of decreasing violence. People live longer, there is less hunger, and there is less to care about. When I read George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, it dawned on me how lucky I am. Had I been born a century ago, literal hunger and cold would have been a regular worry in my life, rather than complaining that I should be paid more in my job or that bosses should work harder not to hurt the feelings of their employees. Go back a century further, and I could be wearing rags and living somewhere in a swamp, like some miserable character in The Lord of the Rings. Comparisons with the severe realities of the past make any complaint I might have about my life and the way someone treated me seem like frivolous nonsense.

In Western societies, we have come a long way from a past marked by hunger, war, genocide, and civil rights struggles aiming for human beings not to be treated like animals. Now, the grievances have turned elsewhere, and the concerns we have are often inane.

Currently, we have a major effort in society to root out just about anything that makes people feel uncomfortable in any way. Many refer to this as "wokeness" but it is really just social liberal militancy being continued in the absence of major injustices to work against. Journalists contribute to it, because their business is always to create moral panic and sell papers.

While some of the goals of social liberal protest are valid, like ending police executions of African Americans and the coercion against women by powerful men, other issues I will not get into border on the absurd. The cause as a whole is unfocused, too, making it just as concerned with nonsense like disapproving of the way someone talks as it is with preventing murder. Surely, there are priorities? Surely, some things are unworthy of concern and do not require any response or even comment?

Rights are at risk of being confused with privileges such as respect, approval and other people being nice to us. The desire to get rid of something as insignificant as "microaggressions", as has become a cause célèbre of some commentators and activists, is unrealistic. It confuses being treated with respect, with human rights. It borders on trying to iron out the wrinkles from other people's facial expressions.

It is not a human right that other people must express no negative assumptions about us. Other people must be permitted to be resentful and hurt our feelings, with no rational justification whatsoever, as they have always done. They must look at and speak to us however they please, and we must do nothing, because that is life. Other people are agents of their own will, and they have every right to be horrible people. Not everyone is your friend, nor should they be.

What people have done is allow rampant speculation and theorisation about their fellow citizens, including a drift towards conspiratorial and paranoid thinking on all sides and at all levels to adjust for the lack of actual material failings or true oppression to talk about. It seems we needed the real oppression. Now that it is gone, we don't know what to do and are gnawing at each other.

Rather than accept the milder sources of discomfort, namely the faults in other human beings, we risk demanding that all prejudice and stigma, no matter how minor, is ironed out like some intolerable wrinkle. But this presupposes that society can even be perfect and achieve equality of outcome at all times, or that human life can even exist in such an unprecedentedly kind society. For all we know, the implicit goal of a kind and perfect society is like wanting to breathe pure oxygen.

I am not trying to defend evil and imperfection, but to just acknowledge it will always be there, in the way Christian theologians acknowledge our world as fallen.

The search for evil

Among conservatives, the conspiratorial thinking about the pandemic and masks is precisely parallel to the nonsensical Critical Race Theory (CRT) in how it exploits paranoia and engages in exaggeration, gnawing at non-issues or even valid health policies because they can't find any true fault with the system. The fact is that radicals are no longer interested in the root of anything (the origin of the word itself) but they are interested in constructing imaginary injustices and writing a wealth of worthless drivel about them.

To believe that other people and the government advising you to get a vaccine or encouraging masks is tantamount to civil rights breaches is absurd. It might be different in Austria, where the government has actually taken coercive measures, but Germany and Austria have always been more authoritarian than Britain and America and that is their business.

Other conservatives believe even more deranged conspiracy theories, explicitly labelling all the scientific community and all the world's governments as being out to get them and even kill them. The theories are insane, but prolific on the internet, alleging global depopulation agendas, et cetera. This is the most extreme example of imagining ugliness in the world to match the grotesquery of our own primitive psyche.

There is no evidence of the evil claimed by conspiracy theorists, but their conspiracy theories are ample evidence of evil within the human mind and the bizarre human need to invent some form of Satanic force to resist.

In the perfect society, humans become blemishes

Humans are tougher than they look. We are built for adversity. Taking all adversity away may be like removing the ground we were walking on, and could have psychological or even physical results on us that we weren't aware of. If the source of unkindness is our own nature, which is possible, then trying to achieve societies of absolute kindness and inclusion may be impossible and even dangerous.

Even removing material shortages and injustices may have been a dangerous move, since it has caused us to obsess about human behaviour rather than systemic problems. Americans gnaw at one another rather than at actual repairable problems, and increasingly list other people as the problems in their lives. It is less pronounced in Britain, but has the potential to get just as bad due to the constant export of American behaviour and concerns to us through the cultural umbilical cord between the countries.

There are valid reasons, whether you subscribe to either the scientific model of evolution or to a religious theology, to believe that unkindness emanates from humans and cannot be ironed out. It may simply arise from us with no reason other than our neurology and behaviour, commanding us to find or even invent problems and continuously exert the same levels of energy to correct them.

In one of the Matrix movies, the creator of the false reality in which humanity is trapped explains that earlier iterations were perfect, but that the human mind refused to accept it. A more believable version of reality, with injustices and disappointments, was introduced instead, so that the sinful minds of humanity could accept it as real.

For those more traditional, consider the Garden of Eden. According to Genesis, humanity was given a perfect world, but became aware of good and evil. That mere awareness itself planted the seeds of wickedness, and we were cast out. As such, by attempting to create a utopia on Earth, we may not be navigating a path back to the Garden, but a path to self-inflicted evil and suffering. Even if given perfection and material abundance, or able to create it, renewed hostility under new guises will only cause us to fall again.

The fixation on minor ills in the pursuit of social justice, the rooting out of microaggressions, comparison of even the subtlest forms of prejudice or disfavour with past murder and genocide by affixing the same labels to it, is the result of a kind of utopia forming. Comfort is so high and expectations are such that true hunger and injustice are unheard of, and new problems are imagined instead. In the end, the only bad thing in our lives becomes other people. All hatred and desire to fix things becomes targeted at other people, and there is no end to it. When everything is perfect and expectations are of a perfect life devoid of all disappointment, human forms and behaviours begin to look like blemishes.

It may be that the ultimate form of society is impossible, because the primitive and violent minds of men will still search desperately for anything wrong with it and react with disproportionate hatred. The knowledge of evil begets evil because it begets fear, which is enough to motivate hatred.

Tigrayan rebel setbacks in Ethiopia were predictable

In December 2021, Tigrayan rebels were advancing on Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. They would soon arrive and remove the regime. Now, they supposedly have had a change of heart, and are ready to negotiate. What happened?

Apparently, Tigrayan rebels, who reject the central government's overreach into their homeland, did not see either the hypocrisy or the logistical nightmare of attempting to conquer the whole country themselves. What happened, on their part, can only be described as idiocy, and this is putting it generously.

How to win independence

Compare this with how Finland was able to fend off Soviet troops in the winter of 1939-40 and negotiate, so that it made fewer concessions to the Soviets. The Finns could not afford to withhold concessions, much less hope to march on Moscow and remove Stalin, as it would have meant the end of Finland.

The Finns have independence because they pursued a wise course. Their extreme military proficiency was used to defend the limited area that they believed they had the right to, as a nation. Their enemy came to respect their demands and not encroach, and a mutual respect was maintained thereafter, as it should be between any two nations bordering one another.

How not to win independence

Tigrayan rebels accomplished significant military victories against the central government. These were sufficient for them to make political demands and fortify themselves in the Tigray region. Instead, they chose to attempt regime-change in Addis Ababa, and may have jeopardised their chances of getting any agreement at all.

The government of Ethiopia is not likely to accept demands from what it will now see as a merciless terrorist minority bent on seizing control over the country and over, if necessary, the corpses of most of the Ethiopian population. The rebels risk resembling those in Syria, who cannot possibly represent anything more than the people of the territory under their immediate military control. Even that level of support for the rebels in Syria is doubtful, since, at their every retreat, local villagers rejoice at the return of the central government.

Foreign-backed independence?

It is when those who seek national autonomy suddenly exit their historic lands and spread violence into lands of others, that they are discredited and the foreign hand behind their ambition is exposed. Some Syrian Kurdish factions did this, withdrawing from Turkish troops and moving into the lands of the Arabs, protected still by the anti-ISIS air power provided by the US, becoming hypocrites.

The so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is a hypocritical sham, imposing Kurdish rule over Arabs and in turn representing American manipulation of the Kurds, and will fail with the eventual US withdrawal. The so-called Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which may have similar foreign backing if its critics are correct about it, risks being the same kind of sham.

One cannot support an independence movement that deprives others of their independence and their rights. As soon as the foreign hand behind its outrageous and excessive ambition is gone, such a movement risks collapse.

Brexit wasn't about the economy but about identity

Every now and then, I see or hear some opinion about how bad the country's decision to leave the EU (the EU exit, or more fashionably, Brexit), was.

The pandemic has limited cross-borders travel and overshadowed any economic fallout caused by Brexit, although leaving the EU was a shakier economic path to take than staying. There was little to be gained economically by leaving the EU, at least in the short term.

Were Britain to benefit more from bilateral trade and the markets of the Commonwealth following the exit, such gains might eventually offset the losses caused by Brexit. However, the diminished and less seamless movement of goods and workers through Europe will always be a loss to the economy.

Brexit is no way to "make Britain great again"

Some may have seen Brexit as a way to "make Britain great again" - "Global Britain", to use the term favoured by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. However, such days are long gone. Were Britain to attempt anything like that empire again, it would only be a farce this time rather than a repetition of tragedy, to paraphrase Karl Marx.

Economic concerns over Brexit failed to move those who voted to leave the EU, and it is not difficult to see why. Economic issues are only prominent in the headlines because the newspapers and news networks are owned by the rich, who stand to lose a lot.

Most people don't notice economic issues or care

News headlines almost always say more about the concerns of the small minority writing them, than about the interests of the common people.

For the proletarian majority, economic growth and the rise of the country on an chart of performance means quite little. They still exist in a state of wage slavery that only gets them through the day, and each day is much the same, regardless of the economic performance of the company or country.

The majority of people would not even agree that anything was wrong with the economy unless the country ran out of food and petrol or the prices skyrocketed until they were unaffordable. Nothing like that is going to happen. The supply lines for anything vital are unthreatened. This much is obvious to anyone, as no politician dependent on votes could tolerate the contrary.

We know from the population's acquiescence to Covid rules, that the majority are able to do just fine not even having any foreign holidays, and in fact many can't afford them anyway. They are okay with restrictions even on how and when to shop, and these things are worse than anything that could have been caused by Brexit.

Life is the same to most people, regardless of proclamations about the country's international standing or economic performance in the news. Some average joes may try to talk or tweet about these issues, but such is more an attempt to sound clever with their peers rather than any reflection of it actually affecting them in any way.

By and large, most people who voted for Brexit have shrugged off the economic warnings with good reason and are not bothered. They are completely unaffected, there is still food on the shelves and fuel in their cars.

Brits rejected Europe as a national identity

So, the talk of economic opportunities gained and lost through Brexit is irrelevant to the real feelings that likely motivated both sides when they cast their votes on the matter back in 2016. Brexit was more an issue of identity than performance on economic charts.

The European Union increasingly presents itself as a single nation, with a common foreign policy, and it is presented as the big boss on all matters social and economic. There is now a unified liberal "European" culture and values, which for some reason resemble the United States more than anything that was fought for by European people.

Bear in mind that many European countries carry crosses on their flags and have state religions, whereas the European Union is secular and carries stars on its flag. These icons of secular liberalism are the features of the United States, not Europe. The United States, which is distinctly non-European and was founded to reject the model of the states of Europe, but first and foremost to reject Britain and everything it represented.

It seems as if the EU is tone-deaf about identity and the sensibilities of the member countries, and has no historical roots in anything. Its very flag and values are like American graffiti. The term "United States of Europe" describes, really, what the EU is: the uneducated scheme of the witless Americanophiles whose father figures were the GIs who liberated their countries in World War Two.

In addition to the fact the EU fails to properly represent anything authentically European, and instead looks American, "Europeanness" even as an authentic ethnicity is rejected by the British. This schism dates all the way back to the reign of Elizabeth I, who set England on a path away from Catholicism at the time, causing the country's isolation from Catholic Europe.

In fact, Britain's original excommunication (or Brexcommunication?) from the Holy Mother Church resembled Brexit, including the search for alternate trade deals outside of Europe. No doubt, the British heretics were condemned then by their opponents at home and abroad to hell, as they are once again.

Shadows of the threat of Europe

While sectarian doctrinal differences are no longer of any importance to the matter, Britain's schism with European civilisation is still real, written into the country's history in blood.

Geopolitical anxieties are not limited to rulers and people who read Horrible Histories. They are very much present in the cultural and collective memory of a country. The British know the French were their enemies for a long time, and the memory of Germany occupying Europe only across the English Channel is known to them all. With this psychological aspect, European encroachment, even supposedly for our own good, is not welcome for many.

And Europe is significantly larger than Britain. When a larger power absorbs a smaller one, what is there to gain for the smaller power? What guarantees can there be that this empire won't devour the country, as its predecessors would have done?

When a hostile power has continuously manifested in the same place, even the least informed peasant in any land will become almost prescient about it. The memory of the geopolitical enemy gets under their skin if any similar power begins to assemble in that same place where the foreign threats arise.