East is West and West now East

A tale of corruption

Start with Charles Hughes Smith. He talks about the USA, not Russia.

https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

The corruption of the rule of law and the resulting decay of the Public Trust are not partisan issues. America's wealthy and powerful enrich themselves in a sandbox of corruption, regardless of their affiliations.

I've often referenced historian Peter Turchin's work. His latest book, End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration, outlines the dynamics that are dismantling America's future. Chief among these is the primary consequence of systemic corruption, soaring wealth-income inequality. Hope in "End Times": Peter Turchin's analysis of our coming collapse could help us avoid it:

For all its breadth and depth, there's a simple message at the core of "End Times": At the heart of our problems, Turchin writes, is "a perverse 'wealth pump' ... taking from the poor and giving to the rich," and we have to find a way to turn it off.

The core of corruption is the maximization of private gain over serving the Common Good and Public Interest. When power is sought primarily for private gain, the social fabric decays and unravels.

Critic and author Christopher Lasch described the decay of the social order when shame has vanished. In today's America, there is no sense of sin, guilt, shame or atonement. Any level of corruption is tolerated and excused, most perversely, "for the good of the country."

Lasch's last book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (1996) lays bare the moral and political corruption of America's elites. The decades since have confirmed his analysis.

My own modest contribution to the topic, Global Crisis, National Renewal focuses on the need for a social revolution that radically transforms what is financially and politically acceptable to the populace. A tipping point must be reached where systemic corruption and its result, destabilizing inequality, are no longer acceptable.

Until we reach that point of social transformation, we're passengers on a ship of state doomed by rampant, systemic corruption and the collapse of the Public Trust, moral standards and the rule of law.

What's blatantly wrong is dismissed as normal. This encapsulates America's collapse.

Amusing isn’t it to peer into picture of how to create a Neo Feudal Order.

Now let us gaze on Russia, our Evil twin. https://www.csce.gov/international-impact/russia-s-weaponization-corruption-and-western-complicity?page=2

PCR says—

Putin has third-rate advisors.  Instead of verifying neoconservative propaganda about Putin weakened by internal dissent, Putin should have said that Prigozhin’s protest got his attention to the bad relationship between the boots-on-the-ground and the military brass in Moscow and to the desire of the troops doing the fighting for the Kremlin to use sufficient force to end the conflict.  The Wagner troops are tired of dying for a war that doesn’t go anywhere or have an end in prospect.

But this would imply Putin’s mistake, not Prigozhin’s, and thinking they were shielding Putin his advisers actually put him at risk by verifying the neoconservatives’ portrait of Putin as weak and internally opposed.

The Russian military brass have been trying to get rid of Prigozhin, because he refused to put his Wagner Group under their command.  The military brass have been paying him back with ammunition shortages and in other ways.  It is possible that they did hit one of his camps with a missile in order to light his fuse.  Whatever happened, the military brass succeeded in getting rid of him, just as the Democrats and the CIA got rid of President Trump’s National Security Advisor, General Flynn.   

Possibly, Prigozhin succeeded in getting Putin’s attention, but that Putin found the “armed rebellion,” “mutiny” story too set in stone to escape it.  If Putin actually regards the events of last Saturday as high treason, why did he give a pass to Prigozhin and the Wagner soldiers?

Would a leader threatened by Wagner troops incorporate them into the military or would he disband and prosecute them? https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/06/27/putin-shoots-himself-in-the-head/

Ko-fi.com/thejournaloflingeringsanity