Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Ken Zaner's avatar

Ironic that Putin accuses the Ukrainians of “nazification” since his goals are very consistent with those of the German Nazi’s of the 30’s and 40’s. His tactic of removing the legitimacy of sovereignty of Ukraine is also reminiscent of the holocaust. The current behavior of the Russian leader fits with the concept of “eternity” politics that you discuss in “the road to unfreedom”.

I also think that underlying his behavior is Hitler’s concept of lebensraum. Russia has historically been in need of a warm water port and the agricultural means to feed its people. The Ukraine solves both these problems - the takeover of Crimea has made the Black Sea a virtual Russian lake and the Ukraine will supply large food supplies.

Truly history is repeating itself and more people need to recognize it.

Expand full comment
Laura Donna's avatar

Thank you for calling it what it is. Your words are good medicine for Putin's attempts at mind-numbing.

Quotations:

We also have to recognize that, for a certain kind of tyrant, being wrong to the point of perversion is actually the point…

And that is exactly why Putin talks about "denazifying" Ukraine. He doesn't want to make sense. He wants to deprive these crucial concepts -- Nazis and genocide -- of any meaning, to wear them out, to make them impossible to use in a reasonable way…

They are to mean whatever he wants, and allow him to do whatever he wants. That is evil enough, but we have still not reached the bottom...

We now see Putin actually wants to do. He is not simply hollowing out the concepts of "genocide" and "denazification." He is apparently planning to mock the judicial institutions created around those concepts...

This seems to be the most apt reading of his promise to "to bring to court those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians." If Russian forces capture Ukrainian political and civic leaders, it seems most likely that he will have them show tried before some perversion of a tribunal, and executed or sent to a special regime prison for a long term. It appears that he intends to delegitimate the whole idea of war crimes -- by committing a real one in the name of punishing a fictional one…

Empty atrocity talk prepares the way for full atrocity. This is the style of the Putin regime: get inside the concepts and institutions that are necessary for decent public life, make a mockery of them, and thereby clear the way for murderous nihilism.

Expand full comment
10 more comments...

No posts