While walking out of the farmer’s market Saturday, I ran into a oldish troubadour – he’s there every week – strumming his banjo and singing Dylan’s Jokerman. So I happily listened. At song’s end I mentioned to him that I had played Jokerman roughly a dozen times this week. He was surprised to hear that, thinking, I suppose, that it isn’t a song that most people are familiar with. By conversation’s end we were kindred spirits – in that moment anyway. But these days, I will take that!
Biden is right. A worldwide struggle between authoritarian and democratic rule is gaining steam. Moreover, it takes place in the context of a crystallizing hegomonic clash between competing blocs on a global level.
Where Biden errs is in his assertion – most recently in his speech in Poland – that the resumption of the Cold War, albeit in new conditions, is the proper response to these challenges. It isn’t.
Instead, he might want to take a page out of the much maligned Mikhail Gorbachev’s book and accent peace, disarmament, sustainability, and global cooperation as well as democracy, equality, and glasnost (openess and transparency). It will be the force of example and policies along these lines, not the projection of military power and a restart of the Cold War that will secure a humane, democratic, and liveable world as well as the progressive dimensions – and there are many – of his agenda.
To think that Putin is a creature of and restrained by a circle of oligarchs finds no evidence in reality; only a simplistic reading of Marxist theory, in which abstractions – the executive branch of government is no more than a committee charged with the task of managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie – crowd out real political processes, allows one to make such a claim. Actually, it’s the other way around in Putin’s Russia.
In a similar vein, the suggestion that the current goverment in Russia is center left finds no evidence in reality either. To believe so is to take flight from reality.
To think that Putin isn’t the main danger to peace in the world at this moment is to be lost in a world of abstractions. Unless I have my facts wrong it is Putin’s army that invaded Ukraine and is killing Ukrainians. Millions have been forced to flee. Lives have been shattered, families separated, and a future has become bleak. And a few days ago, Russia was accused of committing war crimes.
As chilling, Putin more than once has alluded to his nuclear arsenal.
The commission of war crimes and assassinations of adversaries is prominent in Putin’s resume. It goes back to the beginning of his Presidency. He is of an authoritarian state of mind and a corresponding practice.
