Anti-Americanism’s False Savior: Putin the Pathological

As a follow up to my last post, I want to highlight some of the incredible state violence that Putin and the Russian state perpetuates.  State violence that counters the growing propagandized Putin cult of personality.   State violence that has, rather than freeing men from the rule of men, actually violently strengthens it.  Because Putin, as a state actor and thus a perpetuator of violence, has more in common with Stalin and Hitler than he does with Jesus of Nazareth, Mohammed, Gandhi, King and Mandela; five men who resisted state violence.  

So, let’s take a more critical look at Russian state actors beyond the primitive tribal rooting for Putin to take down the United States empire.  Which, by the way, he may succeed at to some degree.  But, if he does, it will certainly inflict massive unintended consequences on Russian people and the Russian state.  There is no way around the largest empire in history.  Russia, China and other state actors owe the vast majority of their power to American empire.   But this isn’t a moral game, it is about power.  Russian state actors want some of the good ole fashioned American state power.  In the Soviet Union, Putin and other state actors sought that power by attempting to defeat the United States in a game of control between two fear-based socioeconomic ideologies;  communism versus capitalism.  But today, Putin and other Russian state actors have gotten a taste of the good life.  So now they serve capitalism’s mammon just as the America does. 

There is ample evidence to convene a grand jury in The Hague to consider whether Putin and other state actors should stand trial for crimes against humanity.  Russian state actors have the blood of countless dead Chechens on their  hands.  By some estimates, that number is upwards of two  hundred thousand dead and half a million displaced.  This includes Russia’s murder of democratically-elected Chechen leaders.   Of these, a former Soviet Air Force General, who was Chechnya’s first democratically-elected president, was murdered by Russia with the possible assistance of the NSA.   So, in fact, Putin and Russia have actually fomented far greater violence in Chechnya than the U.S. and Europe are accused of in the Ukraine.  Not that state violence is ever defendable or one act is worse than another.  Chechens have long sought their own referendum on freedom from Russian oppression that Putin hypocritically denies.   Chechnya attempted this referendum nonviolently and through democratic processes.   Russia used incredible and overwhelming state violence and crimes against humanity to stop any such freedom movement. 

There are claims and counterclaims of wrong-doing from both sides in Chechen mass murders but it was the Russians that sent more tanks into Chechnya than they sent to fight Hitler in Germany.   It was Russia that used disproportionate and unlawful state violence to destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.  And, in the process destroy millions of human connections.   This while Putin mocks the United States for not allowing the Crimean referendum on freedom.   Now there certainly are many Russian-heritage people who will defend this wholesale murder of Chechens.  These are the same people who defended the wholesale murder of Ukrainians in the Russian-created genocide decades ago.   A holocaust that most accounts place at more than a million dead.    I guess Putin forgot to release this fact of Russian oppression in his Ukrainian propaganda campaign.  Not only that, but the Russians have actually enslaved and butchered countless ethnic groups first under the violence of Tsars, then under the Soviet Union and now under Russia.  All manifestations of state violence.   People who defend state violence for any reason are institutionalized.   Defending state violence is really nothing more than barbaric tribalism.   That is, kill the enemy at any cost.  Whose enemy?  The enemy that threatens the survival of the tribe.  Of the state. 

Putin hides behind a war on terror to rationalize their mass murders in Chechnya.  Does this sound familiar?   Whose war and whose terror?    Russia has been at war with Chechnya for hundreds of years as a result of Russian state expansionism.  This recent bloody mess was almost certainly driven by the Russian state defending oil and energy interests.  Sound familiar?  Sounds like United States, Saudi Arabia, Iranian and other examples of state violence. 

Were there imported freedom fighters that arose in Chechnya after the murder of democratically-elected leadership seeking a nonviolent referendum on their freedom?   There certainly were.  Would there not be freedom fighters in any part of the world under state oppression when democratically-elected leaders were killed?  Or when foreign oppressors have been on your neck for hundreds of years?  What exactly did Russian state actors expect?   Did they think their actions would lead to unprecedented harmony and peace?   Violence begets violence.  Chechnya was turned into rubble by 1,500 Russian tanks, artillery and air bombing in a blitzkrieg campaign of state terror that lasted years.   Of course, all of this was suppressed because Russia imposed a media blackout to hide Russian mass murder and incredible violence from public scrutiny.   And from international prosecution.

This reminds me of Ron Paul’s remarks of why people in the Middle East hate the United States.  It’s not because we are free.  It’s because we are exerting substantial state violence to prop up the tyranny and oppression that people in the Middle East are forced to live under.   Is Russian state violence in Chechnya really any different? 

If the people of Chechnya wish to be free of Russian rule for the same reasons the people of the Crimea wish to be free of Ukrainian rule, then why doesn’t Putin grant them the same referendum on independence that he supports in the Ukraine?   Well, the answers are really quite simple.  Putin embraces the Ukraine because it serves his ego’s primitive tribalism to protect his own kind.  That is, Russians.  Ukrainian Russians are culturally Russian.  Chechens have completely separate historical and current cultural and religious differences with Russia.   So, tribalism plays a major role in the hypocritical support of Ukraine secession while denying the rights of Chechens.   Additionally, supporting the Ukrainian referendum enriches the Russian state.  Russia gains more human chattel, more land and more natural resources while, in the process, thumbing their nose at European and American state actors.  Supporting Chechen rights of independence would almost certainly lead to even more secessionist referendums as other peoples living under Russian state oppression seek their own freedom.   This entire dynamic is driven by state violence and tribalism.  In other words, people who don’t think, act, believe and look like Russians are on the receiving end of primitive state violence.  Sound familiar?  It should.  It is the basis for America’s endless wars.  Would a generally Caucasian and generally Christian America support pro-active torture, murder and endless war against other generally Caucasian Christians?

This dynamic of tribalism is driven by the primitive ego’s rationing of love for those it recognizes as worthy while simultaneously denying it to others who it deems as unworthy.   This isn’t love at all.  It’s simply a manifestation of primitive ego attachment rather than true love’s higher state of being.  Tribalism or support of like-minded people involves a rationing of worthiness and empathy that comes from a very ignorant, primitive state of mind. (ego)   The same ignorant, primitive state of mind that is often willing to embrace evil.  That is what violent forms of nationalism are.  Ditto with political party, religious and other forms of tribalism.  It’s just a pathology used by class-based, state actors to stoke a fear-driven, primitive state of mind in people then willing to participate in state violence.   This Ukrainian/Chechen comparison is really no different than the Nazis Aryan race or American exceptionalism or the divine birthright of British or European aristocratic rule.   By the way, Europe still lives under that repressive aristocratic rule.  Birthright aristocracy has maintained its grip on democracy through capitalism.  Just as it now does in the United States.   All of these are examples of primitive tribal manifestations of the ego’s small-minded ignorance enforced through state violence. 

Contrarily,  our mind’s higher power recognizes true love and worthiness for all humanity.  Including those we disagree with.  Including those who we perceive as different.   Do all people not have a right to seek freedom to lead their own self-determined existence void of state violence?  Do not all people have a right to lead a life of nonviolence?  A right to refuse to live under state violence?   If Chechnya’s referendum were successful, I can guarantee that  there are many other ethnic peoples in Russia suffering under some degree of second-class status or forced state oppression who would also break away from Russia and neuter its violent power.  Russia itself would collapse without its brutal force and oppression of humanity.  Guaranteed. 

Putin is also well-known for his use of state violence to literally dehumanize people simply because of their private sexual orientation.   Ayn Rand noted that civilization is the progress towards human privacy.   I suppose being that her family lived under the oppression of the Soviet Union, she had Putin-esque apparatchiks in mind when she made that statement.  This is state violence against people who have done absolutely nothing to harm anyone.  It is nothing more than another example of primitive, ignorant, ego-driven tribalism that rations love, worthiness and acceptance.   Putin personally uses the power of the state to dehumanize the Russian gay and lesbian community because they too are different than him.   Like Chechens and other ethnic Russians.   Putin uses God and the power of the state to defend his dehumanizing violence.  I think we have enough history of how the state has used God and religion to perpetuate its violence against humanity.  We don’t need an all-knowing state theocracy or state religion or fearless “self-described” state moral authority to determine who is worthy and what is worthy.  That’s why people left Europe by the millions to come to America.  To run from religious state-derived violence that as in same ways very similar to the theocracy of modern-day fanatic states like Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.  Putin is not humanity’s judge or moral voice.  He is driven by ego, ignorance and evil.  State-enforced morality, always through violent beliefs, has resulted in more genocide and state oppression than is even imaginable.  

When the state provides cover to this type of violence against people of differing ethnicities, patriarchy, misogyny, sexual orientation or in some way who are different,  it opens the door to useful idiots and the collective mob to do the bidding of the state’s dehumanizing exploitation.   Freeing men of the rule of man through natural-rights-derived rule of law would stop this arbitrary state violence.  The same arbitrary state violence that Hitler too used.  By the way, this isn’t specific to Putin.  It is specific to the state.  This is really no different than how state actors exploited and dehumanized African slaves in America’s past.  Or how gay people are dehumanized by religious fanatics under the protection of many state actors in the United States today.  This application of state violence arbitrarily victimizes innocent people and labels them with subhuman characterizations or equally other emotionally-violent acts of brutality that then conditions society to accept the resultant atrocities created by the state.  Adolph Hitler and the Nazis too were masters at this type of primitive tribalism and state violence and they killed ten million Jews, gypsies and intellectuals to prove it.  It is also the same type of tribal state violence perpetrated through centuries of dehumanizing European aristocratic colonialism.   Every different ethnicity of people exploited by European elites was given a derogatory, subhuman characterization or label by their European masters.   The resultant bigotry and primitive tribalism that was used to rationalize this state violence has resulted in countless state-created holocausts throughout history.   That includes the holocausts in Iraq and Chechnya.   The European aristocracy is responsible for the deaths and misery of far more people than Adolph Hitler.  And they still perpetuate their state-inflicted crimes against humanity today.

Additionally, Putin has also been estimated to be worth as much as $70 billion.   Can you imagine the reaction if it was found out that Barack Obama had enriched himself to the tune of $70 billion dollars using state violence?  Even if Putin is worth just one percent of that, he is a consummate state predator that has used the violence of the state to exploit humanity for his own personal gain.  For a mid-level KGB apparatchik to rise to the level of acquiring this insane level of wealth can only happen through the force of the state.  Frankly, he stole that money from the Russian working poor using state violence.  And, mind you, there are enormous numbers of suffering poor in Russia who have not benefited from the Russian plutocracy that Putin fronts for.  Something that Garry Kasparov has written and spoken about ad nauseam.  Now, many state apologists would interject here and state that Putin is trying to right the wrongs of a Russian oligarchy he inherited.  Umm, can we get beyond rhetoric to reality?   This is the same meme used by Obama apologists.  If his wealth truly is some large number, he has made a hypocritical mockery of any such efforts.  Tens of millions in Russia today live in abject squalor while Putin appears to live like a god.   How else does an apparatchik gain such extreme wealth if not through state violence?  Did he cure cancer?  Solve global hunger?  Develop a sustainable energy replacement for oil?   

Putin, who derives his power by convincing others to give away theirs, now seeks to exploit his recent Ukrainian winnings by projecting Russian state violence onto peoples in the Americas.  This can only have one intent.  Putin seeks to regain Russian state power after its humiliating collapse. (The Soviet Union)  And using Russian state violence to achieve this end.   Such a loving, compassionate  and empathetic person.   I wish him the best in placing Russian weapons of state murder in the hands of nations in the Americas.  But, don’t bet on it.  South America is very leery of smooth-talking foreign state actors.  They have  learned lessons by granting the United States similar power.  Or, have learned by being on the receiving end of the United State’s long and powerful stick of state violence.

Actually, Putin may be the nicest person in the world to those he agrees with.  I think we could even have said the same of Stalin and Hitler.   In other words, members of his own tribe who validate or empower his primitive ego and megalomania.  But there is no evidence I am aware of that Putin has any qualms about using state violence as long as it is Russian state violence that serves the Russian state and personal enrichment.  All of which feeds his pathology.  Whether that is the proliferation of nuclear technology to the repressive, violent and destabilizing state theocracy of Iran or the manipulation of Europeans under the threat of Russian state violence of withholding energy or giving Syria he technology to make chemical weapons or the murder of anyone who seeks to secede from Russian state violence.   And, Putin has no qualms about projecting Russian state violence around the world, being it is the second largest global dealer of death and weapons of mass destruction.   If Russia could be the world’s largest death dealer, does anyone doubt Putin would refuse to sell weapons to any butcher based on some new-found morality?  Putin simply employs a well-developed, manipulative charm and propaganda offensive in his projection of state violence.    Charm that too many are willing to fall prey to.  It’s the same charm and propaganda he used to get elected and still uses to manipulate people in Russia and around the world.   Charm indicative of pathology.  The United States, China and Europe, amongst others, perpetuate the exact same type of violence.  But, do two wrongs make a right?  Does Putin offer humanity anything different?  Are you kidding me?

Speaking of charm, Putin continually manipulates the masses, especially in Russia, with his Hollywood-style, propagandized public exhibitions of being a man’s man.   Having pictures taken with his shirt off or wrestling bears or other equally aggressive macho bullshit that appeals to the primitive ego knuckle-draggers. (This is a form of covert state violence against a man's feminine energy and this violence becomes socialized across state-controlled societies.)   Authentic masculinity rejects aggression or bear wrestling or other completely primitive,  asinine macho chest-beating behavior as noted on here in past posts in support of male masculinity.   To be masculine is to assertively and nonviolently reject ego-driven aggression.   Russian musicians literally sing adoring songs about all of this.  Songs about Putin being the perfect man, a great lover, someone they would like to marry and a strong leader.  This type of dystopian brainwashing is reminiscent of songs about Der Fuhrer. 

That Putin now bamboozles people, possibly pathologically, on a mass scale means exactly what?   That he is Der Fuhrer?  Putin’s “charm” has won over many western capitalists - perpetrators of violence themselves, the Russian  mob, and those riding the wave of anti-Americanism.   Russians and Russian-heritage people, who themselves have been treated as second-class citizens courtesy of American tribalism, now can cheer on their own tribe.  They have their own tribal leader willing to violently defend their nationalistic fervor by showing Russia can win against the United States.  A fervor most are likely institutionalized to after living for nearly a century under a system of propaganda-driven state control we called the Soviet Union.   

Anyone who seeks a willful intent of controlling another human being, either through outright violence or covert manipulation, or seeks to charm another human being into outsourcing their internal locus of emotional guidance and personal power, is almost certainly a predator to some degree.  At the minimum they are emotionally-dysfunctional and seek control (violence)  over others to ameliorate that dysfunction.  And, in cases of people who are able to actually rationalize murder, violence and exploitation on a grand scale, as all state actors do, that person may be completely pathological and without any ability to express true love, empathy and kindness other than through inauthentic cold, calculated, learned mimicry that serves their unbridled or disconnected pathological needs of covetousness, power, ambition, adoration and control.   These they steal from you and me through emotional and spiritual violence.  Most often emotional and spiritual state violence.