Dissent From Within

It's Not Just Russia

One of the things people postulate is that the Russian economy will get so bad the people will overthrow Putin. They look at Russian history and notice that the big movements in Russia were preceded by war, and then a movement of the people to overthrow existing power structures only to be replaced by a new highly centralized power structure that has different players than before but similar ends.

That’s one of the reasons Russia is in such bad straits and standards of living there are primitive compared to the western democratic countries.

I think the people looking for an internal overthrow are dreaming. It’s not going to happen. I have a few connections into Russia via my MBA program at Chicago. I have been reading social media posts by people who have benefitted from the Putin regime. They predictably abhor the war. They are trying to stake a middle ground in which they care about all the people and don’t want bombing and killing. Most have mentioned that they don’t like being discriminated against for being Russian and think what the Western Democracies are doing is illegal.

None of them have out and out said what Russia is perpetrating on the independent country of Ukraine is illegal. None. Of. Them.

Ignore the news on the working class in Russia. They have never been respected or cared for by any governmental structure in Russia going back to the baptism of Rus. If they protest, they will go straight to a gulag. Many if not all will be conscripted into a war they do not want or a war they are willing to fight for if they believe Putin’s propaganda.

Fear is a tremendous motivator as we have seen with Covid. People will do strange things and do things they said they’d never do. When you read that Uber and Postmates have engaged in a policy of segregation and dropped delivery fees from black-owned businesses while everyone, including the civil rights legal establishment, looks the other way you have your evidence.

What would it take for elites who benefitted greatly from Putin to come out against Putin?

My guess is when their children are drafted into the fight, they will have some concerns. Right now, all they have is being socially uncomfortable and they might have to part with some money to prop up the Russian economy. But, people like Putin demand total loyalty, and total loyalty often carries a high price.

Until then, the war will not stop until Ukraine is flattened and its people imprisoned by Putin. By the way, it’s not as if the Ukrainian government was some sort of angelic and idealistic democracy prior to the war. Plenty of corruption there too and you can see a lot of it on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

That brings me to the United States. What’s going on here in institutions is not a lot different than Putin. Bari Weiss Substack has had a series of excellent posts on the totalitarianism that has spread throughout the various government and non-government institutions in America. I would suggest you read them with an objective view, especially if you are a progressive.

We have a special kind of fascism that has been brewed in the US. It’s bitter and when you lean against it, there is a mighty wind that opposes you. That fascism is helped tremendously by social media and the traditional mainstream media.

For example, there are two judicial systems in America. One for people like you and I and one for people like Jussie Smollet.

People like me that are independent get the First Amendment rights of free speech guaranteed to us by the Constitution and Bill of Rights because we don’t care. More importantly, we aren’t beholden to anyone for our income. If you aren’t like me, you fear for your job if you speak out.

In Bari Weiss’ most recent piece, here is a direct quote I pulled to illustrate what is going on everywhere, not just college campuses. These are quotes from law school professors. You know, that place where everyone is supposedly equal under the law and has a voice.

“I got into this job because I liked to play devil’s advocate,” said the tenured professor, who identifies as a liberal. “I can’t do that anymore. I have a family.”

Other law professors—several of whom asked me not to identify their institution, their area of expertise, or even their state of residence—were similarly terrified.

Nadine Strossen, the first woman to head the American Civil Liberties Union and a professor at New York Law School, told me: “I massively self-censor. I assume that every single thing that is said, every facial gesture, is going to be recorded and potentially disseminated to the entire world. I feel as if I am operating in a panopticon.” 

Progressives, like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, are trying to change the game by instituting social scores. Their vision is a top-down vision where cronies are favored and the rest of us struggle. It’s not that different than what Putin has put in place in Russia. What happens one day if I can’t access my brokerage and bank accounts because of my belief in individual liberty and freedom?

Don’t scoff. It can happen and it will happen if they get their way. SEC Chair Gary Gensler just turned the agency directed to preventing fraud in the securities industry to a combatant in the war on global warming along with being a social engineering agency for corporations. He, and his charges are unelected bureaucrats with minimal oversight by Congress by the way.

If people want to disassociate themselves from me because I point out that a lot of America is fascist and it is rife with double standards, I don’t fucking care.

There are a lot of people like me. The question is, what are we willing to do about it? How long are we willing to accept things as they are? What happens when we are not accepting?