Random Thoughts

In the year 2040, humanity finally achieves one of its most daring dreams—the first crew of astronauts have successfully landed on Mars. The mission is broadcast live to billions of people across Earth, eagerly watching as the astronauts take their first steps on the red planet. After conducting some initial experiments, the crew stumbles upon something astonishing: a mysterious cave, previously hidden from their sensors. Braving the Martian elements, the astronauts venture into the dark cavern, their flashlights revealing a shocking discovery. There, propped against the cold, rocky walls, lies a human skeleton dressed in what appears to be an Earthly spacesuit from several decades ago. Beside the skeleton, four words are etched into the Martian stone, illuminated by the astronauts’ flashlight beams: “Stupid satnav autocorrected ‘bars’”.

 

All battles are not equal; a general can win a hundred battles and lose both the war and the peace. Napoleon, who was no doubt clever tactically, lost strategically, twice. His empire didn’t even last more than a few years. It is strange that he is remembered today, outside of military history, given that he was responsible for the deaths of countless people and the needless downfall of his country. France’s influence on world history might have been far greater if it hadn’t sold its North American territories to finance Napoleon’s ego in Europe.

Putinland Disease

I have no way of knowing what people really think in Russia; but I would take a speculative guess and say something like:

• 10% are fascist cheerleaders;
• 20% are broadly supportive of Putinland because they want to believe the Kremlin’s lies;
• 60% want to get on with life and be left alone;
• 9.99% are directly opposed to the regime, but are cowed because of the consequences;
• 0.01% are actively opposed.

As ever, really it is the majority of people in the middle who hold the power, though they often don’t realise it.

Putinland

A despicable act is particularly reprehensible when the perpetrators have had every chance to know better. In the 21st century, behaving like barbarians wanting to resurrect the evils of the past is especially vile.

My opinion has long been that Putin is a psychopathic gangster boss with a corrupt state under his brutal control; yet another despot who murdered anyone perceived as a threat, perverted any justice in government institutions, deceived his people, and stole from his country, like all these types of thugs do. My surprise lately is that he has also shown himself to be colossally stupid. He will lose, the only uncertainty is the amount of destruction he will cause the world in his downfall.

I remember once being in a London restaurant with three Russian women (a long story), when one of them proudly told me that her father was an ex-KGB officer, as if it were a laudable signal of status for her family. What shocked me was that it didn’t seem to cross any of their minds that I equate that bunch of killers with the Gestapo; that I think of it as a violent instrument of the depraved monsters in power that subjugated, tortured and murdered so many people. The reality of the fact seemed to be completely inverted by them away from the appropriate emotions of shame and regret.

Russia, after over thirty years since the collapse of the horrific soviet empire, with all its vast natural resources at its disposal, should not have a tiny, rotten economy, with a GDP per head of an impoverished country. Putinland’s main exports have been weapons and the planet-killing fuels extracted from within its own borders; it creates nothing, except the miseries of war.