Putin’s Political Idealism

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Clarissa

September 8, 2015

The first 100+ dead bodies of Russian soldiers have come home from Syria, and now the rest of the world is trying to prevent Putin from sending more troops and supplies to help Assad.

Bulgaria has already closed its airspace to Russia’s military cargo airplanes that are trying to get to Syria. The US is now working to convince the perennially sleepy Greeks to do the same.

Remember that new biography of Kissinger that I told you I was going to read? It’s titled An Idealist and argues that Kissinger was not a cynic and pragmatist that everybody considers him to be but an idealist. I highly doubt this is a valuable insight into Kissinger but here is my question: why would anybody believe that being an idealist is a good quality for a politician to have?

Look at Putin. All he does is the opposite of pragmatic. He is chasing the idealized and deeply unrealistic vision of Russia as a world power on the same level with the US. He’s sacrificing his country’s economy and the lives of its citizens plus he’s destabilizing one region of the planet after another to keep pursuing this impossible fantasy.

What’s so great about this blind idealism?

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7 responses to “Putin’s Political Idealism”

anon

September 8, 2015

Okay, this is only relevant in that it involves Putin, but I find this to be the most hilarious thing I’ve seen on the internet in a while: https://instagram.com/putinspiration/

I hope it gives you a good chuckle too!

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1. Clarissa
  
  September 8, 2015
  
  Hilarious! It’s a pity that the one where he is kissing a little boy on the belly is missing. That one was the creepiest of them all.
  
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Michael Blekhman

September 8, 2015

I think Putin is a fanatic, fanaticism being the extreme stage of idealism.

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1. Clarissa
  
  September 8, 2015
  
  Exactly.
  
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cliff arroyo

September 8, 2015

The ideal politician is a realist with a broad streak of guarded optimism (or an optimist with a broad streak of cold realism).

Idealists are the most dangerous people on the planet as they completely ignore human beings in favor of ideology.

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1. Clarissa
  
  September 8, 2015
  “Idealists are the most dangerous people on the planet as they completely ignore human beings in favor of ideology.”
  
  I agree. They try to mold reality into the shape of their dreams, and that always requires a lot of cutting and snipping of human life.
  
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n8chz

September 9, 2015

The United States has been at war (at least proxy war) with Syria at least since the Reagan years; probably longer. In general, an enemy of Syria is a friend to the US (and those in her sphere of influence), at least until certain Syrian opposition fighters aligned themselves with Islamic State. As for the idealism, if any, of Henry Kissinger, I think RAW had a reasonable take on idealism:

We of POE have organized quietly. Our numbers are
not for publication, nor our identities. We will not take “credit”
for our actions, unlike the Weather romantics. We will not recruit new members.
We will send no further communiques to the press. We will work and study to
strike the most crippling blows possible against the fascist monster.
If you agree with us, do not seek to find us and
join us. Do as we have done.
Peace On Earth.
John Brown
Some readers of The Seed thought this was a
put-on. Others claimed it was the work of an FBI agent provocateur. A
few wondered if POE actually existed, and what it would do.
Everybody, of course, assumed that the initials
POE stood for the slogan in the last line of the letter-“Peace On
Earth.” They were wrong. POE stood for “purity of essence.” The
group had deliberately taken as their model
General Jack D. Ripper in the film Dr.
Strangelove, who launches a nuclear war to protect “the purity of
essence of our precious bodily fluids” against fluorides. POE honestly
felt that sanity had failed to save the world and that only insanity remained
as a viable alternative.
Nor were they alone in this attitude. The same
year POE was formed, the American people elected Richard Milhous Nixon to the
White House, guided by a similar gut-level feeling that somebody like Jack D.
Ripper was needed to confront the growing chaos of the planet with some strong
counterchaos.*
The real name of the founder of POE was not
“John Brown” of course. That was a pseudonym.
The original John Brown had been a fervent
Idealist, which was why POE admired him. They were all fervent Idealists too.
John Brown, motivated by Idealism, had set out to
abolish slavery in Unistat in the nineteenth century. On one of his first raids
he murdered a whole family of slave owners. An associate, who was less
Idealistic, had suggested sparing the children, but John Brown refused.
“Nits grow up to be lice,” he said.
Idealists were like that. You were much safer
falling into the hands of the Cynics. The Cynics regarded everybody as equally
corrupt. That was the attitude for instance, of Tobias Knight and the other old
hands at the FBI.
The Idealists regarded everybody as equally
corrupt, except themselves.

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