No squeaker in Russia…TikTok on the ropes?....Haiti on the boil…food arrives in Gaza—too little, too late?....where in the world’s that heavenly coffee? And cartoonist Chappatte on battling airfreight
Friendly editorial mark, David. I think you meant (4th para) 'futile gesture', not an empty one.
Great summary as always; the Europeans understand the world best. So little to cheer for, but look at that hero who poured ink on the tyrant's pants. We should get youth everywhere, to print the photo with her name on t-shirts, try to prevent the regime from doing its worst.
While the American media spotlight, ever enthralled by the sensationalism of the moment, remains fixated on Trump and his legal woes, other crucial and overlooked dangers continue to unfold in the United States. First, we have about half our country responding to Trump like zombies - brainwashed followers of the Republican Party (similar to members of the Jim Jones cult), who were unsuspectedly caught in coercive control techniques that Trump uses daily to influence his followers. Second, we have a presidential candidate who sold his soul and our country to the Russians at least ten years prior to sleeping in the White House after 2016. (proof is found in From Democracy to Democrazy by Graham) Third, the influence of Putin's strategies quietly attempts to reshape the trajectory of American politics and American lives. We see that happening NOW.
This current political race is not just between Democrats and Republicans, but between a decent, hard-working, public servant who has successfully served our country for almost 50 years. His constituents re-elected him year after year as a Senator (36 years as a Senator, 8 years as the VP, and 4 years as the President) - he must have been doing something right!!!
His opponent is a man who has been compromised by Russia, who is a convicted rapist and a serial sexual predator, also convicted of fraud with mounds of solid documented evidence and proof, and is now facing 91 criminal charges. His speeches are filled with revenge, hatred, defamation of others, and with no discernable ideology.
Americans were duped decades ago into believing that Russia is no longer our enemy and the world is living in peaceful coexistence. Yes, the Cold War did not die - a revelation for many Americans. We let our guard down, while Russia rebuilt their economy, their military, and their weaponry. Then in 2000, Putin became the second President of Russia. He instantly converted Russia from a communist-socialist government- a civilized form of government where people matter to a dictatorship where no one matters but Putin. He is a man who spent his entire life as a KGB spy, and blames the United States for the downfall of the USSR. He wants REVENGE.
Over the last quarter of a century, he has schemed and enacted his strategic plan. Based on the book called The Foundations of Geopolitics and published in Russia in 1997 - a carefully orchestrated and directed horror film has been produced. The movie theme is the destruction of the United States and the principal key actor is Donald Trump. It won't win any Oscars YET, because (1) this movie is still unrecognized by most Americans, and (2) the ill-informed Trumpers across our nation are the support cast. Trump's dangerous and many-sided destructiveness includes unprecedented ways to influence and control his followers - a form of brainwashing. Unbeknown to these followers, the person who's ideology they are following is not Trump, but Putin.
For the American public, our first source of information comes from our media - newspapers, TV, social media, and even movies. Since "Oppenheimer" was the Oscar winner in our 2024 Cinema history, it shows an awakening of the real dangers faced by Putin's threats of nuclear war. Putin's government also admitted to election interference in 2016 and 2020; they have said it will continue; AND Putin has "shouted from the nearest mountain-top" that Trump will win the 2024 election. What does he know that the American public does not? Has our media failed to do their research and inform the public of these dangers or are they continuing to focus on Trump's legal issues instead of the real danger facing America? Trump is NOT an ordinary political candidate - but a criminal and a traitor (From Democracy to Democrazy). Their broadcasts on sensationalism instead of reality is disconcerting.
I was at a book-signing event at a Barnes and Noble in Tucson, AZ. A middle-aged woman came up to me and said "I think Putin is a smart and great leader." I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out - I was shocked. These were the exact same works said by Trump only the prior week and in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This my friends is BRAINWASHING.
The shadow cast by Putin over the landscape of American democracy, and his influence and control over Trump grows larger and darker by the moment. Our democracy hangs in the balance.
Very interesting take, Elizabeth. Because I'm old and relative idle, I'm tempted to reply to a couple of points.
I agree that Putin and the Putin Palace are behind both Trump and much arch-reactionary activity in the world. Putin's takeover of the old SU was a preordained failure of a democratic movement. Putin rules a corrupt administrative structure, massive foreign interference agency, and a demoralized and cynical mass. However, the failed democratic movement of the 1990s failed in part because of all the weaknesses of what it replaced: a calcified pseudo-socialist carapace called Late Stalinism. This was profoundly unproductive and stultifying, like any Byzantine rule. If you want to know Stalinism, read a biography of its great artists like my personal hero the poet Osip Mandelstam, hounded into death, on his way to gulag, However, personal will counts in the balance: Mandelstam wrote his most glorious lines, I think, as he lay dying. Mandelstam prefigures Navalny,
Still, Mandelstam (fbetrayed by a mole inside a private circle of poets) was at first spared by the regime in the 1934, thanks to the intervention of an Old Bolshevik on Central Committee who remembered Mandelstam as an early cultural rebel, and had read the Russian poetic geist and absorbed it. That could not last the effects of middle- and late-Stalinism.
This give some hope for Russia, but not much. Never in history has a giant regime with a commendable record of military victory surrendered to bankruptcy the way the old SU did when it self-cancelled. Then, the pirates took over, leading to oligarchs and Putin. The Chinsee suffered similar Stalinisms, but being a clever & ancient civilization, with recent anti-imperial struggle in memory, the made a turn to something relatively workable; helps to remember that the population itself forced the regime to abandon its mechanistic dogma of zero-Covid isolation.
As for suicidal attempts to use nuclear weapons? Not so sure, in the case of Putin. Putin was raised in the Mutual Destruction Paradigm era. He knows there's no winner. I'd be more afraid of Netanyahu, on that question, than any Russian mobster.
I am starting again since my previous messages were lost in cyber space. Here is my latest post. I will respond to your thoughtful and educated response in a little bit. The day is getting away from me. Just know that I truly appreciated reading your thoughts. Thanks, Walter.
I lived in Russia off an on for 20 years, and know that Putin did NOT win 87% of the vote. Stalin once said "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything." This is how a dictatorship in Russia operates - the complete opposite from the U.S. and most Americans just do not grasp this vast difference. Americans view the world through our own rosy glasses and with very limited knowledge of other countries or governments. In the early 1990's, the Moscow Business Survival Guide created a pamphlet to help foreigners navigate the Russian business environment. They wrote: "The most fundamental concepts that have guided your judgement for a lifetime are not even known, much less understood here." I studied Russia and then Russian language for about eight years, but it still took me another 3 to 5 years to be able to comfortably navigate the business environment and the streets of Russia so that no one knew I was an American by birth.
In 2019-2020 I wrote From Democracy to Democrazy in an attempt to warn Americans of the Trump - Russia connection, which the Mueller Report failed to adequately do. Now in 2024, much of those warning are coming true. Trump actually believes that if he is not elected, there will be a bloodbath and people will flood the streets with anger and violence. Putin actually believes that Trump will win the 2024 election, and he is shouting this message loudly so the whole world hears it.
Let's just suppose for one minute that Trump looses this election. He has already lost control of his businesses that were used by Russia to funnel millions of dollars of black cash into the United States. He has now been labeled a sexual predator and a rapist. He also faces 91 criminal charges where a conviction could mean prison time.
Only months after Trump lost the 2020 election, Ivana Trump died of a blunt blow to her head. While Trump wanted the world to think this was an accident, I seriously doubt it. Her death was just another example of how Putin operates - fear is his most common weapon.
A State Department official was quoted (From Democracy to Democrazy) as saying "We used to think the Chinese were the worlds largest hacker of U.S. secret information, but now we understand it is the Russians. For example, if the Chinese broke into your house, they would smash a window and take your valuables and leave. If a Russian broke into your house, they would disarm your ADT, pick your lock, steal the last five checks in your checkbook and a copy of your signature, and leave the same way. You would not even know they are there. Cyber attacks into the U.S. from Russia are almost daily. They have hit our hospitals and medical care, our gas and oil, our food and consumer supplies, our military and security, our cell phones, and admitted to election interference and probably our polls. I no longer believe what the polls tell us.
Cassidy Hutchinson remarked that Trump is terrified of being poisoned. Of course he is terrified, and that is because he fully understands that he has been compromised and trapped by Putin. Trump's demise will not come from another American who dislikes Trump's threats and violent, ugly and uneducated speeches. It will come by the hand of a Russian KGB assassin after Trump is no longer any use to Putin.
My oldest daughter managed a joint venture (JV) in Moscow called the Beverly Hills. The Russian partner was Mayor Lyushkov and the American partner was Chuck Norris. Donald Trump attended their grand opening and returned often. The "Beverly" as it was known in Moscow was a casino, night club, and restaurant - known for it's absolute corruption, naked women, and famous faces.. Typical with such JVs, the Russian side decided that they no longer wanted a western partner. In the 1990s, foreign JV partners were thrown out of windows of Moscow's tall apartment buildings; were shot, were pulled out of the Moscow River, and more often than not were poisoned. While I was in Central Asia, one American woman doing an educational/publication JV was cut up and found in pieces in a large trunk in her apartment. Chuck Norris was lucky and Lyushkov just prevented him from acquiring a re-entry VISA for Russia. My daughter was threatened by the newly appointed Russian manager, and she escaped Russia on the overnight train to Helsinki. She took with her several important JV documents. Lize spoke several complex languages including Russian, Japanese, Swahili, Arabic, and Danish. She was working in Japan several years later and the Tokyo Police ruled her death a homicide by an unknown substance - probably poison.
The list of people who have "suddenly died" due to Putin's wrath is long and scary. Dan Rapoport, was an American investor who made a fortune in Russia and then moved back to the U.S. He died from a fall from his 15th floor apartment in Washington, D.C. Navalny was murdered at the age of 47 after surviving a poisoning, and while serving time in a gulag in Siberia. Yevgeny Prigozhin was murdered in a plane crash only months after attempting a mutiny. Sergei Yushenkov, a political leader and opposition to Putin was shot in front of his Moscow home. Annya Politkovskaya was outspoken about Putin's corruption and ruthlessness. She was a prominent journalist and was shot in an execution-style killing in her apartment. Natalya Estemirove, a human rights activist, was killed by bullet wounds to her head and chest. Boris Nemtsov, one of Putin's opponents was shot and killed walking across a bridge near the Kremlin. Eighty-three journalists and media workers were killed in Russia between 2001 and 2009 (www.cpj.org) Paul Tatum, who was an American friend in Moscow and who started the first luxury hotel there was gunned down due to a feud with his business partner. This list goes on and on.
Donald Trump is scared - and will do and say anything to be re-elected to save his own neck or those of his family. While Americans may think that Trump is just a madman; a cult leader with extreme ideas and speeches; or an American business man turned politician - I think he lives daily in utter fear of his own murder. He got in bed with the devil, and his only safety net is to again sit in the Oval Office.
One amazing trait of Russians is their ability to be patient but they always get even, while Americans are the opposite - only time will tell Trump's fate.
Thank you, as always, Bruno !!
My loyal & smart Unleashed family !!!
;-))
Wow … this is some document, Elizabeth !
You have given this some considerable thought!
My thanks !!
indeed....hard to believe, but then what have I got to hide from any Chinese ?!
in fact, it would be great to have even more as subscribers to Andelman Unleashed !
https://daandelman.substack.com/
;-))
so very much appreciated, Keith ... yes indeed, the world, sadly, is becoming an ever more fraught place
done !!
Friendly editorial mark, David. I think you meant (4th para) 'futile gesture', not an empty one.
Great summary as always; the Europeans understand the world best. So little to cheer for, but look at that hero who poured ink on the tyrant's pants. We should get youth everywhere, to print the photo with her name on t-shirts, try to prevent the regime from doing its worst.
Smile - but this is a no contest - Trump is the stooge by far.
While the American media spotlight, ever enthralled by the sensationalism of the moment, remains fixated on Trump and his legal woes, other crucial and overlooked dangers continue to unfold in the United States. First, we have about half our country responding to Trump like zombies - brainwashed followers of the Republican Party (similar to members of the Jim Jones cult), who were unsuspectedly caught in coercive control techniques that Trump uses daily to influence his followers. Second, we have a presidential candidate who sold his soul and our country to the Russians at least ten years prior to sleeping in the White House after 2016. (proof is found in From Democracy to Democrazy by Graham) Third, the influence of Putin's strategies quietly attempts to reshape the trajectory of American politics and American lives. We see that happening NOW.
This current political race is not just between Democrats and Republicans, but between a decent, hard-working, public servant who has successfully served our country for almost 50 years. His constituents re-elected him year after year as a Senator (36 years as a Senator, 8 years as the VP, and 4 years as the President) - he must have been doing something right!!!
His opponent is a man who has been compromised by Russia, who is a convicted rapist and a serial sexual predator, also convicted of fraud with mounds of solid documented evidence and proof, and is now facing 91 criminal charges. His speeches are filled with revenge, hatred, defamation of others, and with no discernable ideology.
Americans were duped decades ago into believing that Russia is no longer our enemy and the world is living in peaceful coexistence. Yes, the Cold War did not die - a revelation for many Americans. We let our guard down, while Russia rebuilt their economy, their military, and their weaponry. Then in 2000, Putin became the second President of Russia. He instantly converted Russia from a communist-socialist government- a civilized form of government where people matter to a dictatorship where no one matters but Putin. He is a man who spent his entire life as a KGB spy, and blames the United States for the downfall of the USSR. He wants REVENGE.
Over the last quarter of a century, he has schemed and enacted his strategic plan. Based on the book called The Foundations of Geopolitics and published in Russia in 1997 - a carefully orchestrated and directed horror film has been produced. The movie theme is the destruction of the United States and the principal key actor is Donald Trump. It won't win any Oscars YET, because (1) this movie is still unrecognized by most Americans, and (2) the ill-informed Trumpers across our nation are the support cast. Trump's dangerous and many-sided destructiveness includes unprecedented ways to influence and control his followers - a form of brainwashing. Unbeknown to these followers, the person who's ideology they are following is not Trump, but Putin.
For the American public, our first source of information comes from our media - newspapers, TV, social media, and even movies. Since "Oppenheimer" was the Oscar winner in our 2024 Cinema history, it shows an awakening of the real dangers faced by Putin's threats of nuclear war. Putin's government also admitted to election interference in 2016 and 2020; they have said it will continue; AND Putin has "shouted from the nearest mountain-top" that Trump will win the 2024 election. What does he know that the American public does not? Has our media failed to do their research and inform the public of these dangers or are they continuing to focus on Trump's legal issues instead of the real danger facing America? Trump is NOT an ordinary political candidate - but a criminal and a traitor (From Democracy to Democrazy). Their broadcasts on sensationalism instead of reality is disconcerting.
I was at a book-signing event at a Barnes and Noble in Tucson, AZ. A middle-aged woman came up to me and said "I think Putin is a smart and great leader." I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out - I was shocked. These were the exact same works said by Trump only the prior week and in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This my friends is BRAINWASHING.
The shadow cast by Putin over the landscape of American democracy, and his influence and control over Trump grows larger and darker by the moment. Our democracy hangs in the balance.
Elizabeth, www.democrazy2020.org
Very interesting take, Elizabeth. Because I'm old and relative idle, I'm tempted to reply to a couple of points.
I agree that Putin and the Putin Palace are behind both Trump and much arch-reactionary activity in the world. Putin's takeover of the old SU was a preordained failure of a democratic movement. Putin rules a corrupt administrative structure, massive foreign interference agency, and a demoralized and cynical mass. However, the failed democratic movement of the 1990s failed in part because of all the weaknesses of what it replaced: a calcified pseudo-socialist carapace called Late Stalinism. This was profoundly unproductive and stultifying, like any Byzantine rule. If you want to know Stalinism, read a biography of its great artists like my personal hero the poet Osip Mandelstam, hounded into death, on his way to gulag, However, personal will counts in the balance: Mandelstam wrote his most glorious lines, I think, as he lay dying. Mandelstam prefigures Navalny,
Still, Mandelstam (fbetrayed by a mole inside a private circle of poets) was at first spared by the regime in the 1934, thanks to the intervention of an Old Bolshevik on Central Committee who remembered Mandelstam as an early cultural rebel, and had read the Russian poetic geist and absorbed it. That could not last the effects of middle- and late-Stalinism.
This give some hope for Russia, but not much. Never in history has a giant regime with a commendable record of military victory surrendered to bankruptcy the way the old SU did when it self-cancelled. Then, the pirates took over, leading to oligarchs and Putin. The Chinsee suffered similar Stalinisms, but being a clever & ancient civilization, with recent anti-imperial struggle in memory, the made a turn to something relatively workable; helps to remember that the population itself forced the regime to abandon its mechanistic dogma of zero-Covid isolation.
As for suicidal attempts to use nuclear weapons? Not so sure, in the case of Putin. Putin was raised in the Mutual Destruction Paradigm era. He knows there's no winner. I'd be more afraid of Netanyahu, on that question, than any Russian mobster.
I am starting again since my previous messages were lost in cyber space. Here is my latest post. I will respond to your thoughtful and educated response in a little bit. The day is getting away from me. Just know that I truly appreciated reading your thoughts. Thanks, Walter.
TO WALTER
Elizabeth Graham
From Democracy to Democrazy
51 mins ago
·
I lived in Russia off an on for 20 years, and know that Putin did NOT win 87% of the vote. Stalin once said "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything." This is how a dictatorship in Russia operates - the complete opposite from the U.S. and most Americans just do not grasp this vast difference. Americans view the world through our own rosy glasses and with very limited knowledge of other countries or governments. In the early 1990's, the Moscow Business Survival Guide created a pamphlet to help foreigners navigate the Russian business environment. They wrote: "The most fundamental concepts that have guided your judgement for a lifetime are not even known, much less understood here." I studied Russia and then Russian language for about eight years, but it still took me another 3 to 5 years to be able to comfortably navigate the business environment and the streets of Russia so that no one knew I was an American by birth.
In 2019-2020 I wrote From Democracy to Democrazy in an attempt to warn Americans of the Trump - Russia connection, which the Mueller Report failed to adequately do. Now in 2024, much of those warning are coming true. Trump actually believes that if he is not elected, there will be a bloodbath and people will flood the streets with anger and violence. Putin actually believes that Trump will win the 2024 election, and he is shouting this message loudly so the whole world hears it.
Let's just suppose for one minute that Trump looses this election. He has already lost control of his businesses that were used by Russia to funnel millions of dollars of black cash into the United States. He has now been labeled a sexual predator and a rapist. He also faces 91 criminal charges where a conviction could mean prison time.
Only months after Trump lost the 2020 election, Ivana Trump died of a blunt blow to her head. While Trump wanted the world to think this was an accident, I seriously doubt it. Her death was just another example of how Putin operates - fear is his most common weapon.
A State Department official was quoted (From Democracy to Democrazy) as saying "We used to think the Chinese were the worlds largest hacker of U.S. secret information, but now we understand it is the Russians. For example, if the Chinese broke into your house, they would smash a window and take your valuables and leave. If a Russian broke into your house, they would disarm your ADT, pick your lock, steal the last five checks in your checkbook and a copy of your signature, and leave the same way. You would not even know they are there. Cyber attacks into the U.S. from Russia are almost daily. They have hit our hospitals and medical care, our gas and oil, our food and consumer supplies, our military and security, our cell phones, and admitted to election interference and probably our polls. I no longer believe what the polls tell us.
Cassidy Hutchinson remarked that Trump is terrified of being poisoned. Of course he is terrified, and that is because he fully understands that he has been compromised and trapped by Putin. Trump's demise will not come from another American who dislikes Trump's threats and violent, ugly and uneducated speeches. It will come by the hand of a Russian KGB assassin after Trump is no longer any use to Putin.
My oldest daughter managed a joint venture (JV) in Moscow called the Beverly Hills. The Russian partner was Mayor Lyushkov and the American partner was Chuck Norris. Donald Trump attended their grand opening and returned often. The "Beverly" as it was known in Moscow was a casino, night club, and restaurant - known for it's absolute corruption, naked women, and famous faces.. Typical with such JVs, the Russian side decided that they no longer wanted a western partner. In the 1990s, foreign JV partners were thrown out of windows of Moscow's tall apartment buildings; were shot, were pulled out of the Moscow River, and more often than not were poisoned. While I was in Central Asia, one American woman doing an educational/publication JV was cut up and found in pieces in a large trunk in her apartment. Chuck Norris was lucky and Lyushkov just prevented him from acquiring a re-entry VISA for Russia. My daughter was threatened by the newly appointed Russian manager, and she escaped Russia on the overnight train to Helsinki. She took with her several important JV documents. Lize spoke several complex languages including Russian, Japanese, Swahili, Arabic, and Danish. She was working in Japan several years later and the Tokyo Police ruled her death a homicide by an unknown substance - probably poison.
The list of people who have "suddenly died" due to Putin's wrath is long and scary. Dan Rapoport, was an American investor who made a fortune in Russia and then moved back to the U.S. He died from a fall from his 15th floor apartment in Washington, D.C. Navalny was murdered at the age of 47 after surviving a poisoning, and while serving time in a gulag in Siberia. Yevgeny Prigozhin was murdered in a plane crash only months after attempting a mutiny. Sergei Yushenkov, a political leader and opposition to Putin was shot in front of his Moscow home. Annya Politkovskaya was outspoken about Putin's corruption and ruthlessness. She was a prominent journalist and was shot in an execution-style killing in her apartment. Natalya Estemirove, a human rights activist, was killed by bullet wounds to her head and chest. Boris Nemtsov, one of Putin's opponents was shot and killed walking across a bridge near the Kremlin. Eighty-three journalists and media workers were killed in Russia between 2001 and 2009 (www.cpj.org) Paul Tatum, who was an American friend in Moscow and who started the first luxury hotel there was gunned down due to a feud with his business partner. This list goes on and on.
Donald Trump is scared - and will do and say anything to be re-elected to save his own neck or those of his family. While Americans may think that Trump is just a madman; a cult leader with extreme ideas and speeches; or an American business man turned politician - I think he lives daily in utter fear of his own murder. He got in bed with the devil, and his only safety net is to again sit in the Oval Office.
One amazing trait of Russians is their ability to be patient but they always get even, while Americans are the opposite - only time will tell Trump's fate.
Elizabeth - www.democrazy2020.org
Thanks for your reply. I'll consider what you write.
I'd put nothing past Putin. Ditto, past Trump. The World Competition amounts to this: Which of the two has less frontal-lobe capacity?
"If I want to sell my personal data to a Chinese company, I should be able to..."
G-d help us.
Awesome rehash of today’s most alarming issues with our world. And our addiction to coffee!
Excellent piece David, the world view of America and its politics has to be seen as peerless in vacuous idiocy… thanks for sharing this!!